Parlor Trick
by eavan
Summary: Harry, Hermione, Ron and some cursed pirates. Yes, it's a POTC HP crossover. Some RHr, lots of sword fighting, heavy silliness. Not for purists. Rated for gore, innuendo, and piracy !
1. Chapter 1

_**Parlor Trick: An Unnatural Gray**_

The interior of the large sitting room was dark, and Mrs. Weasley's efforts had failed to make it either cheery or clean. It was dismal, and gray, and just like before. Fewer cobwebs, maybe. But that's a small amendment that hardly changes the sense of the thing.

The unnatural fog that had settled even into the residential areas of London was incomprehensible to the muggles on the evening news Hermione insisted on watching. Harry and Ron expected to see the man in the too-large suit jacket begin wringing his hands in front of the computerized map. No, he didn't know when it would stop. He didn't know when they might expect a return to the usual, lighter, London gray.

Harry did. He'd been feeling it for weeks, coming. He knew better than to mention it, and he'd become quite accomplished at keeping his hands to his side instead of clutching them to his scar. He writhed in his sleep, yes, but he was behind a door and several charms before he indulged in it. His lack of control had hurt these people—his family—before, and he couldn't see it happen again. He wouldn't. If they wouldn't be pushed away bodily, he'd push them out any other way he could.

Harry wandered to the window and rubbed the sleeve of his jumper against the grimy pane in front of his eyes. He hadn't expected to see much through the fog, but every so often he still felt like trying. Just in case.

The streetlamp visible through the small alley between the building and the adjacent wall brightened and dimmed. Power surges, Harry noted. It might be time. He let his hand creep up his sleeve to touch the end of his wand. Ready or not, he muttered to himself. But those were just words: he'd never have been ready for the sodden slap of the soaked and barely conscious woman crashing through the side table next to Hermione's chair. He'd not have been ready no matter how long he had.

The trio had drawn their wands and positioned themselves around her before she started to stir. The woman's twisted form trembled once and stilled; then she raised the arm she'd flung around to protect her face as she fell. She closed her eyes hard and groaned.

She wore a coarse-woven ivory shirt that nearly wrapped twice around her thin waist. The sleeves billowed away from her arms and were bound at the wrist by tightly-wrapped strips of cloth in dark, muted colors. Her charcoal pants were heavily weathered—Harry thought they might have initially been black. Her middle was swathed in a loud purple sash wrapped from the base of her ribs to the starting swell of her slim hips. In its layers were tucked a dagger, a cutlass, and a flint. Harry almost laughed—she even had well-worn green bucket boots.

The woman groaned again and started to heave herself upright, showing the strands of coins, beads, and bones braided and knotted into her mass of sun-bleached brown hair. She raised a cloth-wrapped hand well-weighted with jeweled gold rings and yanked her hair back from her forehead. She blinked her kohl-lined eyes at them and squinted.

"Back away," Harry commanded. Hermione and Ron did, but not before giving him a look. Harry watched the woman and waited. The woman's chest heaved hard; she rolled to her side and coughed a stream of clotted blood and water onto the floor. Hermione banished the mess with an automatic twitch of her hand. The woman blinked hard at the now-clean carpet and sat up in the wreckage of the side table, clutching her ribs. Harry noted her motion had put her hand in easy reach of the hilt of her cutlass. He nearly smirked.

"Mother's love," she breathed, still holding an arm to her ribs.

"I'll say," Ron muttered. Hermione elbowed him and Harry could make out a slight lift at the corner of the woman's mouth as she watched.

"Gentlemen, Lady," the woman said. Her voice had a strong accent with a slight slur to her words. Ron's face radiated disbelief. The woman hauled herself to her feet and turned to look at the wreckage of the table. "I do apologize for the state of your furnishings." The woman began to shift away from them toward the window. "Though it pains me to take my leave to soon after making your acquaintance, pressing business draws me elsewhere." The woman had backed all the way to the panes of glass. Harry saw her fingers creep to the small handhold at the base of the window. She gave it an experimental press upward, and when it didn't move she cast her eyes around quickly.

"What pressing business?" Hermione demanded. Harry watched the hand at the woman's ribcage creep lower, toward the hilt of her cutlass. "You're a pirate; you can't have business here."

"Pirate?" The woman threw her head back in an exaggerated laugh, showing two gold teeth on opposite sides of her wide grin. "Am I, Lady?" The woman's hand made contact with her sword hilt, and in an instant too fast for any of the three to get off a spell she had used the hilt to smash through the frame of the window. With it thus weakened, she put her shoulder against it and tumbled out into the alley. Harry followed her without thinking; he could hear Ron land behind him.

It was a mistake. At the end of the alley, beneath the dimmed streetlight, stood two masked Death Eaters. A green jet of light shot toward the woman; she dodged with a practiced speed. Harry and Ron fired and blocked, hardly taking time to think. The woman dashed out of Harry's sight and he decided not to worry about it, considering. Just on having that thought he managed to stun and disarm the man attacking him; he turned to check on Ron. He was shocked. Ron was disarmed and on the ground, bleeding from a badly-broken arm. The bulky man in front of him spat insults Harry could only barely hear.

Then he heard the woman. She'd come in behind the Death Eater with her cutlass drawn. Its edge shone blue—magic, then? She leaned in to speak in the man's ear.

"Now, that's not very nice." Her voice was a growl. The Death Eater started to give the killing curse, but the woman brought her cutlass hilt down on the side of his head. Harry could hear the moist crack of the man's now-broken neck just before he sank to the ground. The woman ground her heel against the man's slack fingers, breaking his wand. She gave him a final malevolent look before striding over to the other Death Eater. She picked up his stunned form and wandlessly released Harry's spells. The man struggled.

She whipped the mask from his face. Harry didn't recognize him. He was heavy-set and pale with stringy brown hair just past his jaw. The woman seemed to know him at once. She brought her face close to his and hissed at him. "Tell your master I've returned to settle our accounts." She dropped the man onto his back and he landed hard. Harry kept his wand on the man as he seemed to fade into swirls of smoke, then was gone.

"Never has been one to clean up his messes," the woman mused. She walked over to the dead dark wizard and mumbled a few words before crossing herself. She straightened the man's head on his neck and crossed his arms over his chest. Once she finished she seemed to realize Ron and Harry were still there. Ron stood cradling the ruins of his arm against his chest, and Harry stood just in front of him with his wand firmly in his grasp. She cast a look back to them before saying a complex incantation, waving her hands in an absurd pattern, and watching as the body disintegrated.

"Are you going to let me at that arm, luv?" The woman walked toward them, palms raised. "I assume you can't heal it yourself, as you haven't."

"Who are you?" Harry demanded.

"Captain Renee LeBleu at your service, gentlemen," the woman gave a dramatic bow just in time for the street light to surge back up to full power. She peered at Harry. "Will you be healing that arm, then?"

"No," Ron said forcefully.

"Really, mate," the woman scoffed. She strode forward. Harry shot a stunner at her, which she blocked. She returned one his direction and put a leg-locking jinx on Ron. "No respect for your elders." She took Ron's arm and pulled it gently away from his body. He hissed as the already congealing blood pulled his shirt along with the wounded skin. The woman's hands glowed gold, and she placed them just over the worst of the wound. The skin closed, and the arm began to straighten. She put his arm back against his chest and backed away before releasing them.

Nearly the moment she finished, Fawkes landed on her shoulder. Harry and Ron gaped. "That's a summons, mates," the woman said. "The Lady's already there." The two barely had time to look puzzled before the woman put a hand on their shoulders and apparated all of them.

Harry's first impression was of an impossible tangle of rope. Then the odd smell hit. It was tar mixed with ocean water and something else. Harry peered upward, listening to the snap of the sails. Sails? Who had sails anymore? He looked back down to the deck, where Ron was experimentally moving the fingers of his healed arm. He gave Harry a quick thumbs up.

"Ron! Harry!" Hermione's near sob of relief tore through the dark, but Harry couldn't quite locate it until he saw her. She walked in front of two disreputable-looking men who followed her at a distance but kept her firmly in sight.

"Mister Gibbs! Welcome our guests in my cabin, if you please!" Captain LeBleu shouted down to the deck. Harry could see her at the wheel with Fawkes still perched on her shoulder. The stouter of the two men behind Hermione stood up straighter. He must be Gibbs, Harry thought. He looked over at Ron, who nodded.

"Aye!" the man shouted toward the helm, then turned his attention to the three of them. "All right you lot, follow me." He walked in the direction of a doorway just opposite the helm. Ron shrugged in Harry's direction; Hermione rolled her eyes at them. The three followed Gibbs into the cabin. "I'd say Captain's expectin' a storm, lads—and miss—or she'd not have put you here. So stay here if you don't want to meet Old Hob."

"We will, thank you," Hermione said politely. Harry was glad she'd taken charge of that one, because he had no idea what the man was talking about. Ron looked even more puzzled, and a little put out. Once the man left, Harry thought, he'd have a look around the cabin and ask Hermione what she knew.

The man strode out and closed the door tight behind him, but didn't lock it. The three put their heads together. Hermione's eyes had widened when Ron and Harry told her the woman's name. Apparently she was a pirate captain from the golden age of piracy—whatever that was—in the Spanish Main of the seventeenth century. Ron raised the small objection that she'd be wearing a skirt if she were really that old, but Hermione just rolled her eyes at him.

Hermione told them she'd been taken out of their rooms as she'd been trying to floo Hogwarts. Mr. Gibbs had simply reached through and grabbed her, she said. She hardly thought a floo could work that way, and suspected it had something to do with the time travel it took for an entire pirate ship and crew to be outside London in the twentieth century. Ron blustered some about the "grabbing" aspect of Hermione's arrival, but she swore Gibbs had just turned her over to a woman named Anamaria, who'd put her in a small room below deck.

Hermione was extremely alarmed by Harry's version of the fight in the street outside their apartment. After Ron's account she was even more ruffled, and she spent some time pacing the room. She'd run her hands through her hair enough to expand it significantly before she ceased motion and said: "What 'master' do you think she meant?"

"Voldemort," Harry said automatically. "Has to be."

"But wouldn't we have known she was coming if she was on our side?" Ron turned from his inspection of the papers strewn on the map table.

"Voldemort didn't even exist in her time, Harry," Hermione reasoned. "No, she's got to have some other agenda."

"I have, haven't I?" The captain's voice from the doorway caused all of them to flinch. "Well reasoned, Lady." The woman put her hands together in an attitude of prayer. Hermione looked puzzled. "Let's have it, then. What's my agenda?"

"You're going to turn us over to the Death Eaters." Ron accused.

"Wrong." The captain turned to him. "Nothing in it for me. Try again."

"In it for you?" Harry muttered.

"Pirate." The woman gestured to herself as though that ought to have been self-evident.

"You said you were settling a score. You're getting revenge." Harry squinted at her. "Aren't you?"

"Revenge won't keep the crew in rum, mate." The captain shook her head, and the beads in her hair clicked lightly. "Try again."

"Those weren't usual Death Eaters." Hermione had let her eyes go unfocused as she so often did when unraveling puzzles. "You know what they are."

"And if you knew, you would have the heart of the thing." The captain tilted her head respectfully toward Hermione. "You two ought to listen to the Lady; she has sense enough for all of you." The captain walked over to a chest partly concealed under the map table and drew out a bottle. She took a long swig from it and passed it to Harry. He looked at it a moment, then took a drink. It burned like hell, but he controlled his shock long enough to hand it to Ron.

"Those were not Death Eaters," the captain began. "They were pirates. A cursed crew that took too many lives with their gold, and they're paying it back. All of it." She took a seat on a stool near the map table and pitched her heels up on the edge of the maps. She leaned back against the woodwork behind her to tell her story. "But you see, they can't just atone each as his own man. No. They've got to settle each man's score before any can die."

"But you killed that wizard," Ron protested.

"Did you see him die?" She raised an eyebrow at him. Ron and Harry looked at each other for a moment before responding.

"Yes," they said, almost in unison.

"You didn't. You saw him disappear. He wasn't dead." Harry and Ron's brows wrinkled; Hermione looked excited. "By now he'll be back to his berth, whole and bloodthirsty as ever."

"This is the curse of the mutineers, isn't it?" Hermione interrupted, her eyes bright with anticipation.

"Aye," The captain said quietly. "But there's trouble in it for you as much as for them." She paused to receive the bottle back from Harry. She took a long swallow and drew the back of her hand across her mouth. "Your Harry is the direct descendant of one of the crew—the one they rashly killed before they knew they needed his soul."

"What?" Ron blurted. "His soul?"

"Not quite that. Each man must have a share of his power drained, commensurate with his crimes. All live a cursed existence until then." She paused. "You might be thinking, Lady, that the man they killed can't be dead if that's the truth." Hermione nodded. "That's not exactly it. A man can be scattered so thoroughly his body can no longer hold his soul. The flesh lives."

"Merlin!" Ron swore.

"They ripped him apart?" Hermione breathed. "Oh, Harry." Harry just looked from one face to another for a moment.

"What does this have to do with me?" Harry asked.

"A man's descendents can pay as well as he can. They want your payment, Harry, and they'll follow you until they get it." The captain took another long swallow from the bottle.

"Harry, they can't." Hermione blurted. He knew she hadn't meant to say it, but he could feel a flare of annoyance at her comment anyway. It wasn't concern for him, no, it was concern for him dying before he saved the world. Wasn't that always the case.

"Yeah, I know." He muttered. Hermione looked guilty, and Ron wouldn't look at him at all. The captain's gaze bore into his own, then he felt a succession of images and feelings enter his mind. He felt a moment's panic, but heard her voice in his head telling him why she was showing him what she was.

She'd silently narrated everything she knew about the mutineers' ship, their cave of swag, and the place they used to sacrifice pieces of their souls. She also, very briefly, showed him a man much like his father and much like himself. He was tall, wiry, and had uncontrollable black hair flying around his face. A red scarf on his head kept the braids and dreadlocks out of his eyes as he perched along the bowsprit of a ship, grinning fiercely into a strong wind.

"That was him, Harry. Good man." The captain broke eye contact with him, withdrawing the stream of images.

"He was a killer," Harry said, revolted.

"He put to sea with killers, luv," she said quietly. "The curse is an equal share just as the haul was, but the killing wasn't. Potter kept to the code." She looked stonily at Ron and Hermione. "Your bird told me what Harry means for your world. I won't see him die."

"What's in it for you?" Ron's ears were reddening. The captain grinned, showing her glinting gold teeth.

"It ought to be clear, boy." She purred, leering at Harry. Harry shifted uncomfortably and Hermione blushed. If Ron's eyes could've bulged from shock, they would have. The captain let out a laugh much like the one she'd startled them with in their apartment. "Easy, mate. Just a bit of fun."

"You're cursed as well," Hermione said. "Aren't you?"

"Aye. We are; all of us. When they come too close to a member of old Potter's family, we get summoned to stop them—no matter the time or place." She paused to look at Harry directly. "You might be saying to yourself: won't she give me over to them just to stop her own curse?" Harry nodded. "I won't. If you die, their curse rebounds onto us. And they've got it worse than we have, the poor blighters."

"There must be a way to break it," Ron insisted.

"Ron's right," Hermione said. "There must be some way to kill them without—without using Harry's soul."

"Thanks for that," Harry snapped. The three of them looked at the captain expectantly. She got to her feet and handed Harry the half-empty bottle.

"You'll need this more than I will, luv," she said quietly. To the others she said: "Aye, there's a way. There's little more I can tell you, but know this: everything you need to know to find the answer is on this ship." Hermione stood and walked over to the papers on the map table, immediately beginning to sort them into thematic piles. Ron looked at her in disbelief.

The captain walked toward the cabin door, her gait rolling with the increasing pitching of the ship. She paused a few steps from the door and leaned back around to speak to them, raising one finger as she did. "And mates, we've got a storm on her way. Best you stay here, not overboard. Savvy?" The three made noises of agreement and the captain opened the door, letting in the starting blasts of wind. Harry stepped toward her as she turned to leave. She cast a glance back over her shoulder and winked at him, grinning.

* * *

You might be thinking: "Pirates? What kind of trumped up madness is this?"  
If that's what you're thinking, you'll hate the rest of the story. So ease up, purists. It's all in good fun;no one's going to put an eye out.  
And while I'm disclaiming: Everything you recognize from HP and POTC belongs to JKR and Disney. Not to me. SIGH.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Parlor Trick: L'Isle des Anges_**

When Gibbs opened the cabin door hours later the ship was considerably calmer. The three had passed out at last, huddled for stability in the corner of the cabin. Between the three of them they would've filled a bucket retching, Harry thought. Good thing Hermione was so handy with a banishing charm. He was surprised to continue hearing the canvas snapping all through the storm. Even in the protection of the cabin he felt like the wind could have ripped him in half.

"Captain says you've got run of the ship, lads—and Miss, pardon me—but you'd best not mess about much in the rigging." Gibbs nodded at them, seemingly unperturbed that they were knotted together on the floor. Harry supposed he'd seen it before. Ron stirred just after Harry had got to his feet. They walked toward the cabin door together after Hermione started shuffling parchments again. Ron's stomach gave a loud growl within earshot of Gibbs, who pointed him toward the galley. Ron immediately headed that direction.

Harry wandered toward the helm, where the captain was standing peering long into the distance. He looked around. From what he could see, they were well out into the ocean. He had no idea which ocean, but it certainly was warm. He tugged at his shirt collar, already sweating.

"Welcome to the Caribbean, love," the captain slurred. Harry turned toward her. She beckoned for him to join her at the helm. She'd opened the neck of her shirt wide in the heat, and her sleeves were rolled up her arms to the elbows. He could see a blue ink tattoo peeking up from the left side of her chest. "Like what you see?" She drawled. Harry blushed and looked up, clearing his throat. She gave a low laugh. "It's a phoenix. Runs down my side." Harry nodded, distracted again by the complexity of the rigging.

"Where are we going?" He asked at last.

"L'Isle des Anges," the captain replied. "We're a few days out."

"How do you…" Harry stopped, uncertain how to continue. He wanted to know what made a ship only powered by wind, which didn't feel that powerful just now, cut this quickly through the water.

"Sail her?" the captain offered, lifting an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. He felt awkward having asked, but the captain didn't seem to notice or care.

"Here," the captain said sharply. She was holding an arm out toward him. Baffled, he walked closer to her. "Take her. You have to see from here." Harry obediently put his hands where she guided them. She stood behind him and just to his side, with the left side of her chest nearly pressed to his back. Her hands covered his on the wheel. Once she was satisfied with something—Harry couldn't tell what—she let go of his hands and walked to his side. She kept one hand atop his—her right and his left—while she talked. She pointed out the sailors aloft adjusting the rigging and showed him the start and end points of each line. As she spoke the mechanics of the sails started to make sense.

"How do you change course if the wind's in the sails?" Harry had become increasingly concerned about this point as the wind at their backs gained strength.

"You adjust the sails." At Harry's confused look she continued. "Feel this," she said, pulling the wheel until the easy movement became difficult. "See? At a certain point she'll fight you. That's when you drop canvas to take the fight out of her." Harry watched her hands as she pulled the wheel back into position, seemingly from memory. A thought occurred to him as he looked at her smooth-skinned arms and hands: she didn't look much older than he was.

"How old are you, Captain?" he blurted. Again he felt like an idiot for prying, but again the captain didn't seem to care.

"I assume you mean to ask how old I'd be if I'd been in this time same as you," she hedged. Harry nodded. "Can't say exactly. I think I'm either seventeen or eighteen," she concluded.

"Same as me," Harry's voice sounded a bit more thunderstruck that it probably ought to have.

"Give or take three hundred years, love," she said quietly. Her comment returned Harry's thoughts from the impressive ship and the improbable captain to the reason he was there. Hermione's small form crossed the deck in the company of a muscled man with a braided goatee. Her hands flew quickly in front of her as she gestured, and the man seemed entranced. Ron emerged into the sunlight and joined them. Harry flexed his hands and placed his palms more thoroughly against the warm wood of the wheel.

"You feel it, don't you love," the captain's voice was quiet near his shoulder. He turned his face toward her; a few tendrils of her hair stretched up on the breeze to trace lightly against his face and down his neck. She turned and looked him in the eye—not smirking, not grinning, and not leering. She just looked, and he looked back. "You do, don't you."

"Your ship," Harry began.

"Love, she's no more mine than those two are yours." She gestured toward Ron and Hermione, who leaned and talked together. Hermione's hand clutched as much of her hair as she could, but curls still flew across the space between her face and Ron's. He brushed them away with a tenderness Harry knew he wouldn't have shown if he'd been aware he was doing it. "The _Siren_ gives me what I ask of her, when she can, and she doesn't when she can't. I don't control her, and she can't control me." The captain leveled her gaze on Harry, letting her eyes drift down to his lips and back up to his eyes. "She's my freedom, Harry, not my possession."

"That—that is like them." Harry gestured lamely toward his friends. They waved up at him, and Hermione smiled broadly.

"They love you," the captain observed. She said it like it was a condition to be accepted, but Harry had never quite felt that way. He'd felt it was a state to be achieved, endured, preserved—something. But never a thing that just was. The captain pulled their joined hands to adjust the wheel slightly. She looked to some point on the horizon; Harry could distinguish nothing from the surrounding area, but she made a slight shift to her earlier rotation of the wheel.

She turned back to him again and Harry nearly felt himself lean toward her as he looked at her near-black eyes ringed with the smudges of kohl. Hermione had told Ron the kohl was to cut the glare from the sea, but Harry started to feel as though it was there entirely to make him want to touch it, to look at her, to watch her face.

"Tell me, Harry," she began. Harry watched the corners of her eyes crinkle as she smirked. "Does the boy know he loves her?" Harry turned back to face Hermione and Ron, but carefully kept his eyes up on the rigging.

"Yes," he said at last, smiling faintly. "And no." The captain tilted her head and lifted an eyebrow at him.

"Now you're not talking sense, love." She grunted.

"He knows but he doesn't admit it, I mean." Harry clarified.

"He's not a eunuch, is he?" She asked so softly Harry barely heard it over the wind in the sails. For a moment Harry stood very still. Then, despite himself, he let out an echoing laugh. He tried to sober when he saw Ron look up at him, but only succeeded in turning his still-guffawing face toward the captain, who grinned and winked, sending a glint of her gold teeth his way.

"Maybe," he coughed, controlling himself at last, "maybe you should ask Hermione." At this Harry snickered as quietly as he could, but he shouldn't have worried about it. The captain threw her head back and laughed. As she did Harry noticed some of her crew looking up to her from the deck and smiling, shaking their heads.

"I like you, Harry," she said, smiling out to sea. The thought that burst into Harry's head shocked him: he wanted to hold onto her, bodily, as though that could prevent her from leaving. He hadn't even known he was thinking of her leaving, and he certainly hadn't been aware of any desire to tackle her. Other desires, maybe, but—oh, this wasn't going anywhere good. For a moment he had to focus on keeping the disturbed look off his face. Then she turned her smile on him, and he forgot.

"You're all right too," he heard himself say, nearly whispering. She winked at him again, and he was too flustered to do anything but stand, holding the wheel and her hand.

"Right," she said abruptly, turning toward him and taking her hand off his. She pulled a loop of leather over a grip of the wheel and tested its ability to hold the bearing steady. "Off we go, then. Mr. Gibbs!" She beckoned to Harry, who followed her away from the helm as Mr. Gibbs took their place. "Don't spare the sail, my good man!" She called over her shoulder.

"Aye, Captain," Gibbs said happily, his browned face turned into the light. Harry trailed behind the captain as she strolled across the deck, steady in her odd rolling gait. She paused by a small case Harry hadn't noticed before. She kicked it open and bent over it, sorting through a pile of swords in leather scabbards. She weighed one in her hand, sheathed it again, and handed it to Harry. She selected two others in a similar way before shutting the case and taking off again, this time in the direction of Hermione and Ron.

"Now then," she said briskly, forcing the smaller sword into Hermione's hands and shoving the longer one toward Ron, "I assume you won't have used a sword." They shook their heads, wide eyed and mute. "Anamaria! Mason!" She barked the names over her shoulder and was answered by a yell from the rigging and a bellow from the opposite end of the deck. "With me!"

A wiry man about Ron's height dropped from the rigging, his bare feet slapping on the desk. He had a cutlass strapped in a leather belt around his middle, and a network of scars in lieu of a shirt. Anamaria, a striking woman with long black hair pressed down with a scarf, made a slightly more standard entrance. She, too, carried a blade, but hers was longer and less curved. The two crew members stood side by side in front of the captain, waiting.

"Teach these two to brawl like pirates," she ordered. "I want them prepared for a fight by nightfall, savvy?"

"Aye!" The two shouted in unison.

"And no rules of engagement, mind. Pirates!" The two crew members laughed hard enough to convince Harry he was on the outside of a joke. Hermione and Ron looked just as lost.

"You're with me, me lad," Mason rumbled, stretching a hand toward Ron. Ron shook his hand with a perplexed look on his face. That seemed to have been the right thing to do, as Mason looked pleased with it. Ron shrugged before following the man to a far corner of the deck.

"Come. You will learn two blades, Lady." Anamaria's voice rolled with an accent Harry couldn't place. Hermione nodded toward her with a determined look and followed her below deck.

"Follow me, Harry," the captain said quietly. She walked toward her cabin, holding the door open for him to follow her inside. The sudden dark after the bright morning left Harry standing in the middle of the room blinking his dazzled eyes. He'd just regained the ability to see when he felt a hand slide under his jaw, then the pressure of lips on his. He froze, his wide eyes fixed on the captain's dark eyelashes. She slid her tongue along his lower lip; he closed his eyes and pressed the hand she'd held all morning against the small of her back. She tasted like spiced rum. He dropped the sword and scabbard to thread his other hand in her hair.

He barely registered the sound of her blade leaving her side before he felt the cold bite of the edge at his throat. She'd left her other hand on the side of his face and was holding him there, inches from bleeding to death. She drew her thumb over his lower lip.

"Never drop your weapon, love," she whispered. She took her hand from his face, drawing her fingertips along his skin as she did. She backed away several steps and slid her cutlass back into her belt. "Again," she said.

Harry picked his sword up from the floor, irritated. He attached the scabbard around his middle and pulled the sword from it a little awkwardly. She appeared at his side and changed the curl of his fingers around the hilt. He flexed his wrist, feeling the easier balance at the tip that came with the changed grip.

"Block with the strong edge; attack with the sharp. That's the first point," the captain said, walking several steps behind him. He listened to the scrape of her boots on the floor, and held his breath when they stopped. He waited for the attack. This time she came in from the right with a quick slash that nearly sent his sword spinning out of his hand. She spun around, keeping her back to his back, until he was nearly tripping over his feet. Then she came from the left and tried the disarming move again. This time he was ready, and managed to turn her blade well away from him.

"Attack, Harry, always attack." She stepped in front of him, presenting a far better target. Harry watched her feet and her blade, unsure what would tell him best where she'd attack next. She began to cross her steps, and he mirrored her. "Good, Harry. Force your attacker to present a target."

"Of course, the target's no good unless you use it, love," she goaded. Block her out, Harry thought. It's another duel. Treat it like a duel. Her hips—that's where it shows—she shifts her weight in her hips. Sure enough, Harry's observation was followed quickly by a forward springing attack from the captain. Harry blocked just barely in time, but overbalanced himself and fell. She lost no time in kicking his sword away from his hand. To his surprise, she sheathed her own cutlass and reached a hand down to him.

"A word, now. I think I see." She gestured toward her bunk. They sat beside each other. Harry looked warily at her cutlass. She saw him and removed it from her belt to put it across the cabin with his sword. "Harry, you know full well the fight's in the mind first, then in the body," she began. He nodded, looking at her seriously. "You've got fight enough in your body already. That's not what we need."

"I don't understand," Harry admitted.

"Only that you're strong enough, love. No worry there. But you're fighting a wizard's duel with your mind when you've got a sword in your hand. Savvy?" Harry peered at her. It made some sense.

"What are the differences?" He prodded.

"Strength of the hit, for starters," she said. She turned to lean her back against the headboard, and reached her hand beneath her bed. She came up with a bottle of rum, which she uncorked with her teeth. She took a long swallow and patted the mattress next to her. When Harry warily crawled over the bed to sit beside her, she handed him the bottle. "Y'see, I'm going to tell you a few things I know you already know. You just haven't had the reason to think of them. Once you've got them here," she tapped his temple lightly, "we'll try again there." She flung her jeweled fingers wide toward the space in the center of the cabin.

"Aye," Harry smirked. She flashed a slightly mischievous grin at him.

"Now, think of it. When you're blocking a wizard, what's the worst that can happen?" She looked at him seriously.

"A killing curse," Harry said. "Or losing your wand."

"Right." She brought her finger up in front of her to emphasize her agreement. Harry nearly smiled at her flamboyant gesturing, thinking he'd probably start doing it too if he stayed here long enough. "Now: how likely are those two things?"

"Very." Harry spoke without hesitation. He was accustomed to Death Eaters; the question was a simple one.

"Right." The captain took the bottle back from Harry and took another substantial drink. "Now, in a sword fight: what's the worst that can happen?"

"A killing wound?" Harry wasn't certain, and he wasn't going to pretend he was. "Or getting disarmed?"

"Good." The captain gave him an encouraging smile. Harry hadn't seen it before; she looked very different—younger. "Now, how likely do you imagine those two things are?"

"Depends on the opponent," Harry started to answer. Then he paused, thinking. The captain handed the bottle back to him; he took a long drink. "Not as likely, I think. You're more likely to get blows that hurt enough to distract you."

"Very good." The captain slapped her palm lightly down on his thigh just above the knee. Harry grinned, proud of himself. "What does that suggest about your strategy?"

"Like you said: attack." Harry paused again and took another drink. He liked the taste of the captain's rum far more than he'd ever liked firewhiskey. "Don't worry so much about perfect blocks, just ones good enough to leave a target open on the opponent."

"Exactly," the captain said, bringing her palm down again. Harry handed her the depleted bottle with an apologetic look on his face. She gave him the softened smile again. Harry wondered whether it was drunkenness instead of the caring he imagined he saw, but decided either way it wasn't his business to judge. "Give me a strategy now; you've seen me fight."

"I've seen you trick me," Harry objected. He took a long breath, thinking. Think of what you know, he told himself. What was she doing? "You attacked my senses at first."

"How?" She prompted.

"You stayed where I couldn't see you—and you were loudest walking away when you did." The captain nodded. "When you kissed me I still couldn't see from being outside."

"Only at first," she amended.

"Yes." Harry shifted on the mattress, suddenly awkward again. Her hand on the mattress between them, just brushing the outside of his thigh, did little for his focus. "That was it," he said. He hadn't meant to say it aloud, but as he did he knew he was right. "You knew."

"Knew what?" She pressed.

"You'd cut out sight, then hearing," Harry said. "You went for what was left."

"But how, Harry. Think of how." She turned her torso toward him and ran her nails up his arm toward his chest. He shivered and found himself looking at her imploringly. "What do you want to do when I do this? Without thinking, Harry. What do you want to do?"

"Not fight you," Harry said in a tight voice. He felt like he had to swallow, but her nails moving in light circles near his collarbone were pulling all his brains away—even the ones involved in telling his throat to swallow. She flashed her softened grin at him and dropped her hand back to her lap before turning away.

"Yes, Harry," she said. "I tricked you with your own impulses—ones that we all have and barely control." The idea expanded in Harry's brain as he thought of it. Had anyone done this to him before? Yes; of course they had. They had! His stupid impulse to save people, his rashness, and his 'Gryffindor bravery:' every last one of them had got him into trouble.

"Bloody hell," he breathed.

"Now think, love; how did I know which impulse to pick?" She turned toward him again, her dark eyes meeting his. She was moving him along almost as though she sensed his mounting guilt. He squinted at her.

"The one you know," he said at last. "You know how to do it, so you do."

"Good, Harry." She dropped her palm to his thigh again. "I know how to use this temptation, and I'm in an opportune place to use it." She nodded at him with the encouraging look on her face again. "Think, now. What temptation can you use? What do you have that people want?"

"Not what you have," he answered immediately, looking out into the room.

"Nonsense," she said sharply. Harry almost flinched, and then he nearly blushed. He had no idea what to say, so he thought desperately of some other thing he had that people wanted.

"My power," he blurted. "The pirates and Voldemort both want my power."

"How would you use that to your advantage?" She gave him the disarming look again.

"I don't…" he began. He couldn't give them a portion of it like the captain had. Could he? "Could I pretend to do as they asked?"

"Switch sides, eh?" The captain's lip curled upward. "It has its merits in some situations—mostly those you can control with another barter behind it."

"I don't understand." Harry wrinkled his brow. "Behind what?"

"You offer to use your power to help them accomplish something, say." She gestured toward him and Harry nodded. "You've got to have a way to be rid of them once the deed's up, or they'll start demanding obedience of you from then out—you won't have a chance to turn back." Harry grunted in agreement. He hadn't thought this through. He never quite did, did he? "Say you keep a vital bit of information, or an object, back away from them. Say it's a bit of collateral, maybe. Something you collect to cement the deal. Either way, they don't get it back from you unless you leave, free and clear, after the deal's done."

"They'll know my offer of power isn't genuine," Harry protested.

"Are they evil enough not to care?" The captain raised an eyebrow. She had a point.

"Yes," Harry said. He mused a moment, staring into the middle of the room. "But what does this have to do with the sword?"

"Everything, love." The captain swung her legs back over the side of the bed, tossing the now empty bottle down to roll by her feet. Harry followed her as she bent to retrieve their swords. They both armed themselves. "Now: fight me."

Harry thought carefully before making his first steps. He held his sword in front of him, crosswise across his body, ready to block. Then he reconsidered. Think of the attack. No, think of what she wants. Will she attack me? Will she hurt me? He suppressed the smirk that wanted to come.

He lunged forward, mimicking the attack that had knocked him backward last time. Though her face showed no surprise, the captain's feet shifted clumsily beneath her as she blocked. "There's a man," she said, grinning at last as she pushed him away. She rolled and delivered a blow that shook his arm all the way to the shoulder. He tried to twist the blade from her hand, but she merely ran her blade up and down his own, as though she were caressing it. His eyes narrowed. Not again.

The captain grinned again, clearly pleased with his reaction. So, that was it. She wants a student. Use what she wants, he reminded himself. He pushed out of her range and shifted to her right, careful to keep his balance even beneath him. The moving ship wasn't helping much, he groused to himself. He gave a short lunge to her right shoulder, withdrew, and used the gap exposed at her midsection to dart back at her with more force. She feinted right and leapt behind him, nearly disarming him by wrenching his wrist backward. "Yes, Harry," she purred. "Attack."

"If you say so," he responded, kicking his leg back around her shin and pulling forward hard. She spun, pivoting around his shoulder, and trapped his blade nearly at the hilt with her dagger. Harry hadn't even heard it leave her sash. He froze with her cutlass at his throat.

"Very good," she said, her eyes flicking over his face. "Injuries?"

"You cheated," Harry blurted.

"Pirate," she said. She gave him one of her wicked grins and he again found himself staring at her kohl-rimmed eyes. She backed away in one fluid motion, sheathing her dagger and returning to a defensive position. "Again. You're holding back."

Harry grunted, gritting his teeth. He faced her, starting in a block again. She wanted a student and she wanted attacks. She wanted him not to hold back. What did he have? She'd come at him pretty hard, and he hadn't done the same to her. That was it: attack with strength.

He started his attack with a swing like a beater; he made a heavy slash at her blade that caused her eyes to widen. "We'll have a pirate out of you yet, Harry," she said. He slashed at her block again, causing her to hiss. She smiled wide at him.

"Don't use all your strength, love; I might make sure you need it later," she purred. Harry paused, a little shocked. She used his inattention to dart behind him to somewhere—Harry had heard her leave, but hadn't seen her. And now he couldn't see her at all. He cursed under his breath, then quieted to listen.

Faint breath seemed to sound from behind his ear. He backed up. It seemed to be in front of him now. He feinted right. Now it was left. He went several more steps to the right. Yes, it was on the left. Either up or down, he reasoned. He carefully flicked his eyes up, and caught a glimpse of a white sleeve. There was an extra board between two beams of the low ceiling. He stood in his defensive posture, and waited.

"We could be at this all day, love." The captain drawled. Yes, she was tucked into the ceiling.

"Or you could come down," Harry countered.

"What's in it for me?" she said, her voice exaggeratedly casual.

"You can't attack up there," Harry tried.

"Neither can you," she countered.

"We will be at this all day," Harry grumbled.

"Or you could surrender," she called. Harry laughed. Then she swung down, feet first, and swept her leg around to knock his feet out from under him. He tucked his shoulder and landed with his sword still in his hand, but she easily trapped it with her blade. She'd locked them such that any attempt to rise would bring him in close to her chest with his sword nearly behind him. He concentrated on his surroundings for a moment before scrambling his feet beneath him to stand. He'd grabbed the neck of the empty bottle behind him as he pulled himself from the floor, and he swung it hard toward the captain's head.

She twisted away, losing control of his blade and nearly falling onto the map table when the furniture interfered with her footwork. As she struggled to right herself Harry aimed his sword tip at her throat. She smiled broadly.

"Now, love. How would you kill me, if you were going to do it?" At her question Harry lowered his blade, sheathed it, and stepped away from her. She straightened herself and sheathed her own blade, then wrapped her shirt a bit more securely around her middle.

"The neck, I think," Harry said, his face showing some revulsion.

"What part of the neck?" She asked, bringing her hand up to adjust her rings.

"Here?" Harry tapped his carotid artery. She looked up and nodded at him.

"A common enough choice, to be sure," she agreed. "But I'll warn you: it takes a man several minutes to die from a wound that spills the blood. That's more than enough time to spill some of yours."

"How should I do it, then?" Harry asked, his voice quiet.

"Stun them. You're still a wizard, love," She walked closer to him, her eyes patient and sympathetic again. "And if the worst has happened, and you've not got your wand, take the neck right through if you can. If you can't, take the neck then the gut to be sure of a kill. And if you must, love, go through the eye."

"Right," Harry said, looking sick. His mouth began to water in an unpleasant way. The captain reached her arm around his shoulders and brought her hand up to stroke the hair at the nape of his neck.

"We'll do this every day until the time's come; savvy?" Her voice was quiet near his ear. He turned his face toward her and looked in her eyes. He wanted to kiss her again, but there wasn't an excuse now.

"Aye," he teased, forcing a flickering smile onto his face. She brought her free hand to his jaw, tilted his head a bit, and pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth. He turned his face to follow her hand as she drew it down the length of his jaw. Emboldened by her fingernails scratching lightly down the skin of his throat toward his chest, he brought a hand up into her hair and pressed his lips to hers. She made a sound deep in her throat that brought his other hand up to the sash around her middle, pressing her flint and dagger against his stomach.

He pulled the flat of his hand from her hair, along the smooth skin of the back of her neck and down beneath her collar. She shifted against him, arching her back as he pushed the side of her shirt off her shoulder. She moved her lips to his neck and kissed along the tendons near his pulse. He watched her tanned skin emerge from the fabric sliding down her shoulder and chest. The phoenix tattoo arced up toward her jaw from the side of her ribs; Harry brought his palm over her collarbone and smoothed the flat of his hand down the blue ink until her tight sash blocked his progress.

She reached her hand down, then, and captured his. She drew it gently over to the top of her sash, saying nothing. Her other hand came up to the side of his face, tilting it down to face her. She took his lower lip gently between hers and ran the tip of her tongue along its edge. Harry groaned, and she twisted her tongue into his mouth. He leaned against her. She broke from him, then. He blinked down at her, chilled without her against him.

"I—I shouldn't have," he stammered. The silence between them as he tried to control his quick breathing had become uncomfortable, and it had magnified his urge to apologize. She'd left her shirt hanging low on her shoulder, barely covering her chest.

"Do you regret it?" Her voice was raw, and Harry was relieved to hear that she was affected too. He shook his head, answering without thinking. "Then you should have," she said. She traced her nails from his fingers up between the knuckles of his hand, which was still resting on top of her sash where she'd placed it.

She drew away from him, then, and he dropped his hands to his sides. She turned around without another word and strolled out of the cabin into the light—to the helm, Harry thought. Maybe she was right. He didn't regret it, and he wasn't sorry. But he sure as hell wasn't going to tell Hermione or Ron.

* * *

Swashbuckling!  
Please review.  
Thanks. 


	3. Chapter 3

**_Parlor Trick: Cartography as Science and Art_**

Hermione woke Harry and Ron near dawn the next day. They'd all stayed awake late into the moonlight with the sailors on deck, learning songs and drinking rum. Even Hermione had indulged in some once Harry and Ron had assured her it wasn't very strong. And in fact it wasn't—it was so heavily spiced and watered that the alcohol took several long drinks to catch hold of the body. But after the heat of a day, a little alcohol at night meant a roaring headache come morning.

"Harry!" Hermione's stage whisper felt like a slap against his ear. He pressed his eyelids tightly closed. Ron rolled over nearby. "Harry, I think I've found something important," she continued. He peeled his eyelids open.

"Whassit?" Ron mumbled beside him, sitting up.

"I found a map and a ship's log on the table, Harry." Hermione continued as though she hadn't heard Ron. "I think the captain stole this ship."

"What?" Harry managed.

"I'll show you; come on, Harry." Her voice took on a familiar impatient tone. Harry hauled himself upright and stood, blindly flinging out an arm to check his balance. Hermione's hand clasped around his wrist. He opened his eyes again, surprised that he'd closed them. "I've laid it out over here. Get up, Ron," she commanded. Ron stirred again.

Hermione had a large map spread wide over the table. A leather-backed book with a truncated spine and broad pages sat closed atop one corner, and a smaller map of an island rested unfurled at the opposite corner.

"L'Isle des Anges," Harry muttered, sliding the small map closer. "That's where we're going."

"I know; I talked to the captain." Hermione flipped the book open to the starting page. "This is the original ship's log of the _Siren_, Harry." She looked up at him, catching his eyes. "I think the captain and the crew stole it."

"The log?" Ron said, rubbing his fingers against his eyelids.

"No, the ship," Hermione said impatiently. "The log stops here," Hermione paused to flip through the book, "where the bearings say it's headed toward Jamaica."

"There's more written, though," Ron protested, having spun the log book over to look at it.

"In another person's handwriting, Ron. And there are dates missing." Hermione said matter-of-factly. "And look at this: if you take the bearings for Jamaica, and you put this map," she paused to retrieve the map of the island and set it toward the center of the larger map, "where it belongs according to latitude and longitude…"

"They'd have hit it," Ron concluded.

"So this ship was sailing toward L'Isle des Anges, which isn't on their map, then someone else started writing in the log book." Harry looked to Hermione to confirm his summary. She gave a sharp nod. Ron traced a finger along the route Hermione had shown them.

"So they're here," Hermione said, putting her finger down on the map, "and then a few weeks later they're over here." She moved her hand well to the south.

"But we don't know what happened between," Ron said. "Right?"

"Right. But they're pirates, Ron. We know that." Hermione said. Harry felt as though there was some relation to something that he wasn't catching, and the feeling annoyed him. "And later in the log book—this is the important part, really—there are more big breaks in time like that."

"The curse?" Harry lifted his eyebrows, happy to feel remotely clued in to Hermione's thinking.

"Yes," she said happily. "They got the curse right here, when the handwriting in the book changed."

"And that's where they're taking us," Ron said glumly.

"But why do you think they stole the ship?" Harry asked. "Why can't it just be someone else's writing?"

"The second one's the captain's writing, Harry, I've seen it," Hermione said. "And it's the captain's log, not just anybody's." Harry shook his head, giving Hermione a confused look. Ron looked a little less lost, but still lost. "Don't you see? She stole the ship, took them to L'Isle des Anges, then they got the curse."

"Or they got the curse from stealing the ship," Ron said. Hermione frowned.

"Maybe," she allowed, "but then why would we be going all the way to that island?"

"Why can't they just tell us?" Ron whined. Hermione scolded him, but Harry agreed. Why couldn't the captain just say whatever it was they needed to do to break the curse? Why did they have to figure it out? Harry scowled. His head ached and his mouth was dry, but the last thing he wanted was another drink of the captain's rum. Hermione and Ron had drawn together over the large map, talking quickly about the possible curses.

Harry turned away and crept out onto the deck, then below to the galley. He found an apple in a net bag hanging from the beams and took it on deck to eat it. He didn't hear the captain approach behind him until she spoke.

"Penny for them?" She said quietly.

"Why can't you tell us about your curse?" Harry turned to her. She kept her eyes out to the horizon.

"If I do, nothing you do can break it. There's no cheating a curse, mate," she said. "How's the Lady faring with the puzzle?"

"She thinks you stole this ship somewhere near L'Isle des Anges, and that's when you got the curse." Harry peered at her, hoping she'd react. She didn't. "Why do you call her the Lady?"

"Thought you'd never ask, love," she said. She reached into the folds of her sash and pulled out a gold chain with a large oval pendant. It held a bit of green glass circled with filigree; beneath the glass were dark strands of something. She held it out over his hand, and placed it in his palm when he moved to take it. "Look at it carefully."

She walked away. Harry threw the core of his apple overboard and walked back to the map where Hermione and Ron were still huddled. He made his way over to the light of the window and placed the pendant close to the panes. He squinted down at the dark strands. Beneath the glass it was hard to tell, but they looked like locks of hair.

Hermione lifted her head and looked at him curiously. "What is it, Harry?"

"I don't know," he muttered. "The captain gave it to me just now."

"Can I see it?" Ron asked. He and Hermione had rounded the table and come into the light of the window. Hermione gasped and took it out of Harry's fingers before he even had a chance to give it to Ron.

"Harry," she blurted. "I've seen this before." Ron and Harry looked at her worriedly. She continued to stare intently at the pendant, turning it in her hands.

"Put it on, Lady." The captain's voice cracked across the room. It wasn't encouragement, it was an exercise of authority. Hermione didn't resist. She looped the chain over her head at once, smiling. The chain shortened to place the pendant just below Hermione's collarbone. When it started to constrict, Harry and Ron both had put out their hands to grab for the necklace, but Hermione had turned away. She still smiled gently as the captain strode across the room. Ron looked uneasy, and Harry thought he probably did too.

"You," Ron blurted. "What did you give her?" He demanded, rounding on the captain.

"Easy, boy. Ask Harry." The captain nodded in Harry's direction. Harry glanced quickly from the captain to the pendant.

"What is it?" Ron demanded. He was now looking at Harry and rapidly getting angry.

"I don't know!" Harry racked his brains. "I just asked why she called Hermione—oh. I asked why she called Hermione 'the Lady.'"

"That thing is why?" Ron rounded on the captain. "Why had she seen it before? What is it doing to her?"

"It's not doing anything, Ron." Hermione's voice sounded far off. "It's showing me something. People—one of them looks like Harry—and a woman I know from somewhere, but she wasn't as old."

"What?" Ron breathed.

"I know her, I know I do. I know her face. She should be in a different dress, and she should have—she should have this!" Hermione's eyes snapped back to awareness. She peered at the captain. "That's the Lady, isn't it?"

"Aye," the captain said. "The pendant belonged to the Lady when she was young."

"That's his hair inside," Harry said. "My ancestor's."

"Aye. He gave the glass and the lock of hair to her when he was a lad. He had the pendant made for her when he was a man." The captain nodded.

"Why?" Ron asked, his eyes suspicious again.

"She raised him," Hermione said suddenly. "He was the boy at the beach."

"What?" Ron said again, moving back from irritation to bewilderment.

"You've most of it now, Lady," the captain encouraged. Hermione took the pendant against the palm of her hand and held it.

"It's sea glass, isn't it," she muttered. "When he was a boy he found this glass—they were at the beach. He gave it to her. She took a lock of his hair, too. She loved him; I think she took care of him." Harry peered at Hermione. It had shown her, he thought, somehow. "When she got old he had it made into a pendant for her, because she'd kept it. He didn't think she'd keep it."

"Look carefully at it, Lady," the captain prodded. Hermione raised the pendant up. She looked out the window panes, thinking. Harry desperately wanted to ask the captain what was going on, or to make her tell him, but he held it in.

"The hair!" Hermione blurted. "It's not all the same color." She reached over and grasped Harry's forearm, excited.

"Harry, was your hair lighter when you were young?" Her words collapsed into one another in her rush of joy about the discovery.

"A little, maybe," he said dubiously. So his ancestor gave his hair to—that woman—he gave her a new piece when he was an adult. So what?

"Harry, don't you see?" Hermione gushed. "This is a piece of his body!"

"What!" Ron yelped.

"Think, Ron: all the parts of Harry's ancestor have to be somewhere. This is a part." Hermione put the pendant between her palms and held it tightly.

"That's disgusting," Ron protested.

"But it's just hair," Harry said. "Hair's not really part of your body."

"Of course it is," Hermione insisted, rolling her eyes. It took Harry a moment to realize the captain's booted footfalls were heading toward the door.

"Wait!" he called. "That doesn't tell us why Hermione's the Lady."

"Tell them who the Lady was, love," the captain drawled toward Hermione. Harry and Ron turned toward Hermione, incredulous.

"You knew?" Ron accused.

"Not before, Ronald," Hermione snapped. "I do now. She was Lady Kasson; she was a widow."

"But who's that?" Ron pressed.

"She was in my family generations ago. I read about her once." Hermione's voice became quieter with the second sentence. "I suppose I never thought about her actually living." Hermione seemed to shake the fog off her mind with a little effort. She looked Harry and Ron in the eyes before continuing. "Though she was a widow she paid for the education of several children; one of them was my many-times-great-grandfather."

"Whose children she loved," the captain added. Hermione's eyes went wide. "She wanted her titles to pass to the children, but she wasn't allowed her wishes."

"You knew her," Hermione said, her voice quiet again.

"No, just of her," the captain said. "Just from Potter." With that the captain turned and walked out of the cabin. The three stood in silence, looking at each other. Finally, Ron spoke.

"Wonder if there were any Weasleys on this ship," he said.

* * *

Okay. I'm pretty sure there's not Lady Kasson out there in real life, but I make the standard disclaimers if there is.  



	4. Chapter 4

**_Parlor Trick: In The Blood_**

Harry found the captain at the wheel hours later, after he'd spent much of the day with Ron and Hermione trying to figure out what he had to do to reunite his ancestor. In the back of his mind a cynical voice kept reminding him that reuniting the old Potter was just part of the problem. Then he'd have to make sure the pirate paid out his debt. And why would he want to do that? Once he did, he'd die.

"How goes the battle, darling?" The captain asked, lifting the brow of a battered leather tricorn up her forehead to see him better.

"Not well," he said glumly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"I'm calling the crew up for a vote this evening," she tilted the hat back into place on her head. Harry could understand why; the glare was disabling. "You'll have to vacate the deck for the occasion, mate."

"What're you voting on?" he asked.

"Ah, that's why you'll have to vacate the deck, love." She grinned. "Ship's business."

"Hermione thinks you stole this ship." Harry blurted. He seemed to do that so often around the captain.

"I did, darling," the captain chuckled.

"When it was on the way to Jamaica," Harry added. The captain looked out the corner of her eye at him, and when she saw him looking at her she grinned.

"Well done, mate," she said.

"Hermione thinks I have to put Potter back together at L'Isle des Anges." Harry ventured. The captain grunted. "You won't tell me?"

"Not just now." She said quietly. "There's a great deal at stake, love."

"Always is," Harry groused. The captain grinned again.

"Up for a bit of fun?" She leered at him. Harry smirked, thinking of her talk on strategy.

"Aye," he said. She let out one of her loud laughs, attracting the attention of the crew. Most of them smirked a bit before returning to their tasks.

"Off we go, then," she said. She looped the leather strap over the grip and beckoned to Gibbs. She strode across the deck shouting orders to Anamaria and Mason; the two followed Harry and the captain into the cabin to retrieve Hermione and Ron. Each left with their swords to spar.

Harry unsheathed his sword as the captain closed the door to the cabin. He wasn't going to stand around unarmed again; not with her nearby. She nodded when she saw him.

"Good. You remember. Now: attack." Harry paused. She hadn't drawn her cutlass. "Do it, mate," she goaded. He looked at her position. She merely stood with her arms at her sides. He lunged at her with a slashing attack, as powerful as the ones that had worked the previous afternoon. To his shock, she didn't move. His blade slammed into her upper arm just above the elbow; he heard the bone crack. Blood ran down her arm—he nearly dropped his sword.

In a swift move she dropped to one knee and rounded her leg along the floor, kicking his legs from beneath him. He had a moment to be irritated that she'd done this to him again before his shoulder contacted the boards. He started to roll away to stand, but realized he was leaving his entire back unguarded. In his moment of indecision she pulled her dagger with her off hand and put it to his throat. He cursed.

"Up you get," she said. She got to her feet and sheathed her dagger. Harry stood, staring at the blood running from her wound to her hand. She followed his gaze and stepped close to him, wrenching her sleeve up above the cut. "Look at it, Harry."

The ragged slice had gone to the bone—he could see a white sliver of it gleaming in the flesh of her arm. But even as he watched the wound knitted itself. The skin where the wound had been was soon flawless. He reached toward it and brushed the new skin with his fingertips; it felt real. He traced a drip of blood down to her hand; it too felt real. He stopped when his fingers reached a new texture. He lifted her arm up to the light.

"That one won't heal, Harry," she said. He flicked his eyes up at her. In his disbelief he'd almost forgotten the arm was attached to someone, and that he was being watched.

"What is it?" he asked, squinting at the barely-visible area covered in dried blood.

"A brand," she said. Harry looked at her, perplexed. "Given by the East India Company. Seems they didn't want to share their gold with me." She smirked. Harry ran his thumb over the roughened skin. It formed a 'P.' Pirate.

"Why didn't you block me?" Harry asked.

"I needed to see what you'd do," she said. She backed away from him and brought her sleeve back into place. "You know that wound wouldn't have killed me, Harry. Wouldn't even have stopped me."

"I didn't want to hurt you," he admitted.

"I appreciate that, love," she grinned, "but you have to be able to hurt me. And as you see, you won't really."

"You can't die," he said, "but it hurts, doesn't it?"

"Aye," she allowed. "What does that tell you?"

Harry concentrated a moment. He could cause her pain, and she didn't heal all that fast. "I could wound you enough to stop you," he said.

"Stop me how?" She prodded.

"Keep you from getting to your weapon; keep you on the ground; distract you." He pictured their short combat. "You didn't use that arm."

"Because it bloody hurt, mate," she chuckled.

"Sorry," he said quickly, trying to hold in the guilt. She took his chin in her bloodied fingers and turned his face toward her.

"None of that," she said sharply. "I'll start unarmed. Once you're breaking my blocks that way, I'll get my blade." Harry nodded. He backed away from her as she removed her flint, dagger, and cutlass from her sash. She paused to retie the strips of cloth around her wrist to hold the cuffs of her shirt in place, then stood across from him. "Right. Remember, Harry. Attack."

It seemed like ages before she decided to get her blade. Harry's arms were already sore at that point, but they were nothing compared to the grinding feeling he was starting to get in his knees every time he lunged to slash at her. Part of it was her relentless motion—she less blocked than failed to present a target. Even once she had her blade Harry tried for some time before he drew blood again. He paused after that, breathing hard, and used his forearm to wipe the running sweat across his brow.

"A word, Harry?" She held her bleeding side as she lowered herself to sit on her bed. He walked over and collapsed next to her. She hissed as his weight caused the mattress to shift beneath her, moving her wound. Her shirt was slashed heavily and dyed with blood, but she was just as strong as when they'd started. Part of Harry was annoyed at that even while it was a relief—he really didn't want to hurt her.

"You really know how to treat a Lady, you know that?" She quipped, still breathing shallowly as her side closed.

"I'm sorry," Harry began.

"Harry, come now," she interrupted, locking her eyes on him. She stretched a hand over and patted him on the thigh, then brought her hand up in front of her face. "Blimey, I need a bath," she muttered. Harry snickered.

"I do too," he said. "You bled on me."

"Whose doing was that, darling?" she laughed. She brought her hand down from her side, and Harry could see where the ink of her tattoo had realigned on the newly-closed skin over her ribs. Harry crossed to the map table to retrieve yet another bottle of rum.

"How much of this do you have?" he wondered aloud. She let out another laugh.

"Complain and I'll start giving you the baptized stuff," she said, waving a hand toward him. Harry had no idea what that meant, but decided to let it go in favor of slinging a good amount of the rum down his throat. He brought the bottle when he returned to the bed.

"Where do you take a bath, anyway?" Harry cast his eyes around the cabin for some hint of a tub, or even a bucket.

"Planning something?" The captain leered at him. He shook his head. She waved a hand toward the windows. "The sea."

"Overboard?" Harry blinked.

"Yeah," the captain said. "Not all of us at once, mind."

"Right," Harry said.

"You do swim, don't you?" She asked, turning to him with a piercing eye.

"Yeah," Harry said, picturing the Prefect's bathroom tub. He gave himself a mental shake. Once again, he was thinking things around her that led nowhere good.

"Want to have a go?" she said. Harry's brain stalled for a long and uncomfortable moment before he forced himself to remember she was talking about swimming. Right.

"Now?" he turned to look at her. Her shirt wasn't really still wearable in its current state; she was holding it together.

"Why not?" she replied, walking across the cabin and unwrapping her sash as she went. Harry trained his eyes on the ceiling, but let them slip down a few moments later. She was pulling a clean shirt over her head, and he could see her tanned back all the way to the tied waist of her pants. Two small indentations in her skin marked the base of the muscles of her back; the light formed shining arcs where her skin curved. He forced his eyes back up to the ceiling and didn't let them back down until he heard her leave the cabin.

He felt the ship begin to slow, and there was a commotion on deck. The captain returned, removing the cloth ties around her hands. She'd left the sash off before, and she now kicked free of her boots. Harry joined her back on deck stripped to the waist and missing his shoes. He only felt ridiculous for a moment before noticing how many other sailors were stripped down for the water. He couldn't catch sight of Ron or Hermione, but he could see Mason. He assumed Ron was on his way and Hermione was still practicing. That expense of mental effort took up enough time for the captain to get impatient with him and draw him by the arm to the side of the ship.

"No plank?" He joked.

"You need one?" she parried. She dropped his arm and stood on the rail for a moment before diving far off the side of the ship and sliding smoothly into the water. Cowed, Harry waited a bit at the railing. Beside him, Mason stepped up on the railing. The big man leapt off and hit the water feet first, still flailing from the jump. Harry followed him in.

He'd expected cold, but he didn't feel much. The water near the surface was warm, and it was fairly clear for a greater distance down than he thought it would be. He wrenched his brain quickly away from that thought—he didn't want to consider how far away the bottom was. He looked around for the captain.

"Don't bother about her, lad," Gibbs' gruff voice came from beside Harry. "She's part fish, the captain is."

"Aye," Mason agreed. "Probably checking the hull for barnacles."

"She's under the ship?" Harry's voice betrayed his shock.

"Has to be done, eh?" Gibbs said evenly. Harry blinked. Without his glasses the world was a dazzling expanse of blues with indistinct figures separating the sea from the sky. He dove under the surface and slid up again, relishing the cleaner feeling on his skin after too long without a bath.

"She looks all right, if you're asking," the captain said dryly. Both Gibbs and Mason seemed to flinch.

"That's a relief," Harry muttered. The captain caught it and smirked in his direction. Her hair had darkened in the water, setting the bright colors of her beads and coins in higher contrast. The kohl around her eyes didn't seem to have been altered at all, but Harry couldn't make out detail. A short time later the crew left on deck lowered ropes over the side. The sailors climbed the ropes, their clothes sending streams of seawater down on the sailors below them. The second group of sailors jumped in, joined by Ron and Hermione. Harry smiled down from the deck to see Hermione do it; he'd thought she wouldn't.

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

_**Parlor Trick: Confession**_

The captain ordered Gibbs to put them in her cabin that evening just after Mason had come to retrieve their bowls from supper. Ron had protested and Hermione had tried to ask about it, but Harry simply followed, and eventually they followed Harry. The captain' slashed and bloodied shirt still sat hanging off the side of her bed when they walked in. Harry thought of sneaking over there and kicking it beneath the bed, but Hermione saw it just as he had the thought.

"Harry!" she gasped. "Did she hurt you?" She looked at him with wide eyes, then scanned his arms for wounds. Ron looked from Harry to Hermione, his brow wrinkled.

"No," Harry said. "It's not my blood, it's hers."

"Hers?" Ron said quietly. "Did you do that?"

"She heals," he explained. "I think they all do."

"Like she healed my arm?" Ron asked. Hermione had picked up the shirt and was running her fingertips along the clean edge of a slash.

"Not like that," Harry said. He wasn't sure how to tell them about what she'd done. He blundered his way through the story with some help from Hermione, who'd started mending the rips with her wand while she asked him clarifying questions.

"She's teaching you to press your advantage," Ron concluded.

"Ron's right," Hermione said. "Ron, what's Mason teaching you?" She looked up from the shirt toward Ron, whose eyes were focused on the movements of Hermione's hands. Ron cleared his throat and paused quite a while before starting his own account of his training. Harry was a little relieved Ron was having as much trouble describing it as he had, and he was especially relieved that they both had Hermione there to keep them saying anything at all.

Mason had been working on Ron's speed, partly, but also on using his reach. Mostly, Ron seemed to be learning about the choices an attacker has, and how to control which one his attacker would use. Harry thought it sounded a lot like chess: there are set ways your opponent can attack you, and you control which ones appear most advantageous to them. But it wasn't chess, Harry thought sourly. He pictured the wounds in the captain's skin that afternoon. It wasn't a game. Hermione had finished the rips and had started removing the blood stains from the shirt.

"How do you know how to do that?" Ron wondered aloud.

"I'm a girl, Ron," Hermione reminded him. Ron looked confused—Harry was certainly confused—for a moment, but then his face passed quickly through surprise to embarrassment. Harry thought several more seconds before what had occurred to Ron came to him as well. Right.

"Anamaria's teaching me to use the other person's attacks," Hermione said. Harry thought that could mean all sorts of things. She continued. "Because I'm small she's told me I should deflect the attacker's force to make them overbalance. Once they're down I can immobilize them."

"That's not like Harry and me, though," Ron said. "That's a defensive lesson."

"There's another part, Ron," she corrected. "She's teaching me stealth." Harry looked sharply at Hermione. It made sense. She was small, and light, and quick thinking. Anamaria was probably teaching Hermione some of the blocks the captain had used that afternoon. Ron and Hermione had gone on talking while Harry thought. He wandered away to look out over the sea.

"They're teaching us to fight because we'll have to fight someone, Ronald," Hermione said impatiently. Harry smirked toward the glass as Ron sputtered in response. The moon was near full, and it was bright overhead. Only a few thin and flat-bottomed clouds moved past high in the sky. The wind gusted toward him, flexing the panes and causing the wood to creak.

"Captain says you're to come," Gibbs said. Harry hadn't heard him open the door, but there he stood, backlit from the torches on deck. He, Ron and Hermione followed Gibbs out of the cabin. The entirety of the crew was either in the shrouds or on the deck. Their heads swiveled toward the trio as they walked toward the captain.

"Gentlemen!" the captain bellowed, "and ladies," she added, casting an eye toward Hermione, who'd been joined by Anamaria. "We have agreed to consider Anamaria's proposition, aye?"

"Aye!" the pirates thundered at once. Harry felt the sound in the pit of his stomach.

"Will we hear her?" the captain continued.

"Aye!" the pirates yelled again. Ron's eyes were wide as he stared around the gathering. Hermione looked as though she were trying to figure it all out as quickly as possible. Harry wished he had his sword.

"Anamaria!" the captain called loudly. Anamaria stepped forward.

"I say these are the ones. I say we tell them," she said, her voice strong and certain.

"And if you're wrong, lass?" Gibbs asked. There was no real challenge in his voice, Harry thought, only wariness. Harry assumed they were talking about telling the three of them about the curse. He could nearly see Hermione thinking the same thing; he hoped she wouldn't say anything.

"How much worse will it be?" Anamaria countered.

"She's right," a tall pirate with a long queue spoke up from the shrouds. "It won't be so much longer even if we do. And then we're out of it."

"Robert's your uncle," the captain muttered just in Harry's earshot. He smirked and she winked at him. As Harry looked back toward Anamaria he saw Hermione hastily cut her eyes away from him and the captain.

"I say we act!" Anamaria's voice shot firm and loud around the deck. "What say you?"

"Aye!" The pirates answered. The roar surprised Harry again; he thought he felt the echoes under his feet, in the heart of the _Siren_.

"Any man opposed, speak!" the captain ordered. There was a faint shuffling of pirates looking over their shoulders at one another, but no voices. "Gentlemen!—and ladies," the captain said, striding forward two steps and looking around at the crew. "We are resolved!"

The pirates let out an incoherent roar. Anamaria put a steadying hand on Hermione's shoulder. Harry was reminded of Hermione's ever-present nerves at quidditch matches. The pirates roared again.

"Then by the Code of the Brethren, let it be done!" the captain declared, throwing her arms wide as she stood on the deck. She dropped her hands to her hips and Harry nearly laughed. Anyone would know, seeing her right now, that she was a pirate. Anyone. "Mr. Gibbs!" she said sharply, rounding to face the man.

"Aye, captain?" The man grinned wildly, clearly anticipating his orders.

"Drinks all around!" the captain pivoted a quarter turn, her hands spread by her sides. The pirates let out another yell. Gibbs beckoned to two thin and young-looking pirates carrying a barrel forward toward the captain. The pirates began to move forward all at once, but Gibbs stopped them with a bellow.

"Order, you dogs, or you'll be taking the watches this night!" he threatened. The pirates froze in place, and only started to move again when Gibbs directed them. The captain walked over to Harry and stopped close beside him, facing the growing commotion at the barrel.

"I'll need a word, love," she said quietly. "You lads and the Lady. Bring them." Harry looked at her and nodded. It only took a moment to catch Ron's eye and gesture toward the cabin; it took Ron even less time to catch Hermione's attention. Back in the cabin again, they waited as the captain rummaged a moment on the map table.

"What're you looking for, Captain?" Hermione asked, walking toward the table. "I might've moved it."

"You didn't, Lady," the captain said. "There we are," she murmured. She'd taken hold of something beneath all the papers on the table. She gave a sharp pull upward, upsetting every map and document onto the floor as the surface of the table flew up. Hermione backed up a step. Beneath the map table was a shallow compartment lined in black velvet and a thin layer of cushioning. Three cutlasses laid in a row gleamed under the candle light. Each had a sharkskin grip and a leather-wrapped scabbard. The captain picked up the scabbard nearest her and withdrew the blade. She gave the hilt a twist, releasing a smaller blade that slid open into three splayed spikes. She handed them to Hermione.

"Bit more dangerous than it looks, eh? Yours, Lady," she said. Hermione hefted the blades in her hands. The captain returned to the table to pull out the next scabbard. She drew the blade and flung it spinning through the air, only to catch it in her grip. She flipped it again and extended the grip toward Ron. "Precise balance, mate," she said. She took the final scabbard from the compartment and handed it, without ceremony, to Harry.

He drew the blade. He looked at it, flipped it, and looked again. It seemed much like his practice blade. He brought it up to guard and made an experimental slash through the air. "Attack, Harry," the captain murmured. Hermione and Ron had stilled, watching him. He extended the blade toward the captain in challenge. She smirked and drew her blade. "Thought you'd never ask, love."

He withdrew to a defensive position and felt an odd sensation through his palm. He decided it was the grip, and pulled his attention back to the captain, who'd begun to circle him. There: an opening on her right side. He darted forward with a partial attack to the left so she'd widen the opening. She did. He changed directions and slashed inward from her right. She redirected the force of his lunge upward, nearly landing him on his stomach. He wrenched his weight back to center over his feet, grinding his blade against hers as he went. To his shock, the edge of his blade glowed gold.

"Strengthen it, Harry," she captain said quietly. Harry focused on the edge of the blade. He could feel a sensation coming through his arm from his chest—like a steel core was in his arm running power out through the sword. He focused on it, and on the odd feeling at the grip. "You feel it, don't you, love; it's just like the ship."

It was. The feeling had the same resonance as the one he'd felt through his palms on the ship's wheel. He threw his mind back to that conversation. She'd said the ship was like Ron and Hermione. How was it like them?

"It will give you what you want, Harry," the captain murmured. "It wants to do what you ask it to do." She ran her blade up and down his own, rhythmically, as she backed away a step. She began to circle again. Without thinking, he kept pace. "Tell it what you want."

So many things fought to occur to Harry at once that he couldn't start to characterize them. He wanted Hermione and Ron safe, he wanted all his friends safe, he wanted to live, he wanted Voldemort to die, he wanted this to be over…did he? He wanted this to be over, but he didn't want the captain gone. He squinted at her, frustrated. No, it wasn't about her. He was supposed to be asking his sword for something. Well, what was it? What did he want the sword to do? Put Potter back together for me, he mentally commanded it. And take the curse off the _Siren_.

The blade radiated gold in a blast that pushed the captain off her feet and pressed Ron and Hermione against the windows. The captain stood up, shaking her head. "Blimey, you are powerful, aren't you?" she said.

"It was the sword," Harry sputtered, holding it up in front of him.

"Harry, I've been teaching your family to fight for three hundred years. Think I'd know if it was the bloody sword," she shook her head. Harry blinked at her, still entranced by the shining blade.

"The metal's moving," he said quietly. She sheathed her cutlass and came to his side, curling her hand around his on the grip to tilt the blade in the light.

"I'll be blowed, Harry, it is." She said. She turned her head to look at him curiously. "I think you've done it," she said.

"Done what?" Ron demanded. He and Hermione had crept away from the wall, but looked wary of approaching. The captain waved them over.

"Look now. This is what you're here to see." Hermione and Ron bent over the sword. The blade seemed to boil with a mix of gold and silver metals, though it was solid and cool to the touch. The captain backed away from them and leaned casually against the map table, which she'd put back together.

"They voted to tell us something," Hermione said suddenly. "You didn't tell us."

"True," the captain said, nodding respectfully toward Hermione. "But I will now. You may want to take a seat, mates." Harry sheathed his sword and went to sit on the captain's bed as he'd become used to doing. He pointedly ignored the prim look Hermione gave him. She and Ron settled into the only two chairs in the cabin.

"I was about the age you are now when it started, mates," she began. "Through a few of my—dealings—I got the bearings of L'Isle des Anges, and the story of a haul there." She smiled a little.

"Course I thought it was a story at first; you would have too if you'd heard it off the drunken buccaneer I did. But it was no story. The hoard was real, the island was real, and the bearings were real." She paused to shift her weight and looked around at each of them before continuing.

"That's when we took the curse, love," she said, looking directly at Harry. "That was near five years after the crew of the _Leviathan_ hacked old Potter to shreds, and they were still making berth there at the island. They were still pillaging, a crew of the immortal damned, and taking all the swag to the caves."

"I heard of that five years of gold, love, and I knew what I wanted." Her face went hard. She turned toward Hermione. "The _Siren_ hadn't come to me yet, Lady, you're right. I sailed a trim girl named the _Maria_, fast and shallow on the draft. Unfortunately," the captain grimaced, looking toward Ron, "I got her shot full of holes when I failed to predict the tactics of the British Navy."

"The crew beached her and patched her up, but we were yet out of Jamaica, not out of British routes, and listing something shameful." Ron and Hermione's faces looked utterly absorbed. Harry pictured himself trying to make a living as a pirate with a crew, and he suddenly felt very naive. "So I went for a score. I was young," the pirate said with disgust. "I wanted a name for myself. So I went for the _Siren_."

"She was sailing under merchant colors for Jamaica, and she had a few passengers I didn't know about. We boarded her like she was filled with sailors alone." The captain dropped her head, clearly angry and ashamed. Harry's arm twitched from a desire to cross the room to her. He suppressed it. She raised her head and looked at each of them in turn.

"There were children. Innocents, Lady." She turned to Hermione, whose face was ashen. "We kept to the Code, I swear to you. Not one of us ever harmed them. We loosed the Lady's daughter and those children at the first fair port we found, without a hair touched."

"The Lady's child was there," Hermione interrupted. The captain nodded.

"She wanted the sailors freed as well. She tried to exchange the pendant for them." The captain paused again, looking out the window to sea. "I never was one for much blood, mates," she said quietly. "The ones as wouldn't join the crew got a boat and enough provisions to reach land. We sailed for the island."

"So there are some from the _Siren_ crew here now?" Ron asked.

"Aye," the captain said, flashing her gold-toothed grin at him. "Mason, for one." Ron blinked at her.

"You took the pendant." Hermione said.

"Pirate," the captain countered, shrugging her shoulders. "I've regretted it for three centuries." Harry and Hermione winced, and Ron gaped. "You see, the crew of the _Leviathan_ had been trying to put old Potter back to rights by taking in as many pieces as they could. There were some as were long lost to the sea, as you'll imagine." Ron visibly swallowed his disgust. "But with enough parts they thought they'd manage it."

"You had part of him," Harry said.

"Aye," the captain said quietly.

"You tried to use it as leverage," Harry pressed.

"Aye," the captain murmured. "An equal share of the treasure for the locket, we offered. And in trying to change gold for a man's soul we gained a curse." Hermione let out a small sigh of disappointment. The captain turned to look at her. "And it was no less than we deserved."

Harry was stunned to hear her say so. She'd reminded him once and again that she was a pirate, and she had tried to teach him to press his advantage in all situations. But the more he reflected on it, the less sense his judgment made. So she believed in trickery. That didn't mean she believed in evil. Whose side was she on?

"I'd known Potter, Harry," she continued, walking toward him. "I believed those men could be defeated by my crew without harm to a hair on his head. He was a good man." Her voice was insistent. She looked into his eyes and he looked back. They stayed that way a long moment, completely ignoring Ron and Hermione. At last she flashed a series of images in his mind. He saw her dangling the pendant before the man he knew to be the cursed captain. He saw the crew fighting the cursed pirates, and he saw several of them bleeding on the floor of the cave. He saw and felt a burst of power and pain mixed with near unbearable anger and regret. He hissed sharply, and she withdrew from his mind.

"What now?" Ron asked. His voice seemed loud after the silence between Harry and the captain. The captain backed away from Harry and turned to look at Ron and Hermione, who had drawn together and clasped hands where they stood across the room.

"Now the crew fights with you. We give you the pendant and swords you need to join him again," the captain said, "and we take you to the cave."

"Where did the swords come from?" Hermione interrupted.

"Now that's what we voted to tell you, Lady." The captain grinned at her. "The swords appeared with the curse, along with this." The captain strode to the map table and snatched a parchment from a drawer beneath the large wooden table top. She handed it to Hermione, whose quick eyes scanned it.

"You'll die," she breathed. "You'll die, won't you?"

"Die?" Harry's voice cracked across the cabin. He stood.

"Aye," the captain said. If the heirs had figured out how to use the swords and pendant alone we would've lived out the rest of our days—just starting where we left off." The captain turned to face Harry. Hermione had handed the scroll to Ron, who was immersed in reading it. "But as we've told you how to break it, we'll all die when you do it."

"Bloody hell," Ron mumbled, still bent over the parchment. He lifted his head. "You've got to read this, Harry," he said, walking across the room with the scroll held out in front of him. Harry took it and read it quickly, becoming more and more angry as he went.

The scroll outlined what was expected of him. The sword was to act as his wand when he rejoined Potter. The parchment contained the spell. Though he could get into the cave with the aid of the pirates, he couldn't get out that way. They'd die once he put the man back together. Potter would be in the hands of his killer shipmates, and Harry would be too. He could only hope they'd extract their payment from Potter and die before they decided to kill him. He didn't like his odds, and he didn't like the idea of killing off the captain and crew.

"You chose this," he snarled at the captain.

"We all did," she countered.

"You're going to make me kill you," he accused, walking toward her. He was so angry he felt she ought to feel it against her skin, like heat. "You did this."

"We all did," she repeated. "We did do it, Harry, you're right. We damned ourselves to this, for three bloody centuries. Do you think death doesn't look pretty friendly after three centuries?" She was roaring at him toward the end. Their faces were close; Harry could see the shift from the lighter skin of her lower eyelids to the browned skin of her cheekbones.

"You chose me," he hissed.

"They chose you, darling," she growled. "If you'll remember, I kept them from killing you off."

"Why would they kill him?" Hermione's voice cut between them, but neither backed away. "They needed his power."

"No they don't, Lady," the captain corrected. "We told them about the pendant when we stole it, savvy? They only needed to find the missing piece, and the dead are easy to search. They'd have killed you all to get that pendant. No, they don't need Harry alive. We do. We need to redeem our evil by giving Potter a fighting chance to live—by having you use that sword."

"How will you help him fight when you're dead?" Harry snapped.

"We don't die until it's done," she hissed.

"Then—why would you do it at all?" Ron's voice sounded quiet from across the room. The captain turned to look at him. "Why not fight your way in, give them the pendant, let them put him back together, and fight your way back out again?"

"That's not what the curse says," the captain said carefully.

"Maybe it is," Hermione said. "Maybe it is." Her voice took on an excited pitch, and her words came faster. "You're only supposed to undo the evil. You don't have to use Harry to reassemble him yourselves. It's still undone if they do it, isn't it?" The captain pulled the parchment from Harry's hand and smoothed it open on the bed, bending over it.

"Damn me for a fool," she whispered. "I never thought of taking the both of them." She stood and clutched Harry's arms near the shoulders. "I've risked you, Harry." She released him and looked wide-eyed and Ron and Hermione. "I've risked all of you."

"It doesn't matter now," Hermione said quickly, walking over to the bed and taking back the parchment. "We have to think of a plan. Ron, come with me." She hurried out of the cabin onto the deck. Harry could just see Ron tailing her as she stepped through the opposite doorway and disappeared below deck. He turned back to face the captain. Her stare seemed to reach somewhere well beyond the room.

"Generations of your family, Harry," she breathed. "Of Potter's family. And I knew we needed the Lady. Mother of God…" Her voice trailed away; Harry felt as though he could see it curl into invisibility, like smoke. She turned her face back to him.

Her face had fallen into a look of tired misery; Harry recalled her memories of receiving the curse, and he stepped closer to her. On an impulse he pushed his hand into her hair and kissed her, hard. She formed her body against him, pressing her splayed fingers against his back. She was soft, and warm, and he thought of nothing but keeping her with him—not forever, maybe, but for right then. And that was enough.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Parlor Trick: Sunrise**_

Harry found Ron on deck asleep, sitting up holding Hermione against his chest. She faced forward, slanted across his him with her head lolling near his shoulder. A blanket was wrapped around her like a cloak, and Ron had turned his face at some point to rest his cheek against her forehead. The sun had just started to lighten the sky, but it wasn't visible on the horizon yet.

When Harry woke he was alone in the cabin, sprawled with his feet on the floor and his back across the captain's bed. She was gone, but he'd expected her to be gone. In fact, he was a little grateful. It gave him a chance to gather himself, find his sword, and stop feeling like an idiot for regretting that all he did was kiss her once before falling asleep. That was your chance, Potter, he mocked himself. But eventually a voice much like Hermione's reminded him that he was young, and he had time. A voice a lot like Sirius' said something unmentionable shortly after that, and Harry walked out on deck smirking.

"Harry?" Hermione's quiet voice, roughened with sleep, surprised him. He'd walked past them toward the helm almost without thinking.

"Morning," he said to her, barely allowing his voice enough volume to reach where she sat. Ron took in a sharp breath and squeezed his eyes shut harder before opening them.

"Mate?" he asked, clutching an arm tighter around Hermione. Harry noticed she hadn't moved her head since waking.

"Right here," Harry told him, well aware that Ron wasn't awake enough to figure that out for himself. Hermione started to sit forward, but Ron pulled her back. A look of consternation crossed her face. She pried his fingers up from her side and started to lift his arm away from her torso. Harry shook his head. "I'm going to talk to the captain," he said. Hermione stopped trying to free herself and settled back against Ron again.

The captain wasn't at the helm when Harry approached. He looked confused, and Anamaria simply pointed upward. Harry followed with his eyes and caught sight of the sole of a bare foot high in the rigging.

"Take the ones closest to the mast first, then she'll tell you," Anamaria said quietly, not looking directly at him. She made an adjustment to the wheel and turned in his direction with a stern look on her face. "You'd better not be lying, boy," she said, her voice firm. Harry knew what she meant somehow—from somewhere below all the thinking he'd done.

"I'm not," he said firmly. Anamaria nodded once and turned away from him. He returned to the deck and took hold of the ropes she'd indicated to start his long climb. It wasn't truly that long, but it began to feel like it as the length of the mast magnified the sway of the ship. It was like climbing an upward-facing pendulum, and Harry's stomach was certain it was a poor idea. He kept on, training his eyes to the steady blue of the sky.

"We'll put in this afternoon," the captain said quietly. Harry hadn't thought she'd seen him, or was even aware he was coming. She twisted her torso to face him. She was out along the slope of a line, clinging by her left foot at the bottom and the back of her bent right knee curled beneath her. Her right hand was fisted around the rope at the top. To Harry it looked precarious. "Keep going like you are," she instructed. Harry climbed until he reached a small platform, where he gratefully sat down.

He could hear the lines flexing beneath him from the wind and the strain of the captain's weight shifting as she climbed to meet him. She swung up and sat beside him on the narrow ledge. Her shoulder braced against his, and their thighs pressed together.

"Is this the crow's nest?" Harry asked. The captain shook her head, and one of her beaded plaits tapped his neck.

"No, that's more civilized," she said, motioning upward with her hand. Harry tightened his grip on the lines and looked upward. He could see the bottom of a classic circular crow's next just above them on the mast. "Watch is up there," she added. Harry looked out to the horizon in the direction the ship was sailing.

"Where's the island?" he said at last, having given up his scanning. The captain extended a jeweled finger directly ahead of the ship. Harry turned toward her, wrinkling his brow.

"Really, love," she teased. "You are a wizard. Surely you know better than to ask?"

"But a whole island?" Harry said, incredulous.

"Powerful magic, mate," she said. She fell into silence again and Harry did too. He was uncomfortable at first and felt he ought to say something, but nothing came. Better uncomfortable than foolish, he supposed.

The sun brightened the sky as they sat, and the familiar glints on the water started to dazzle Harry's eyes. He found himself listening to the captain's even breathing as he felt her ribcage expand near his own.

"The Lady's got it figured, then?" the captain murmured. Harry stayed silent a while.

"I think so," he said.

"Mate, listen," the captain's voice was louder, more authoritative. "We could die anyway; I've been thinking of it."

"You won't," Harry began.

"We might, love. No sense dreaming." The captain kicked her left leg out straight, then let her foot dangle again. She turned her face to him; her dark eyes were serious when they found his. She inhaled sharply. "I want you to know the coordinates before we put in."

"You won't die," Harry tried again.

"Harry." The captain's voice was weary and quiet again. "You'll have to get home somehow." She continued to look at him. He felt his lips twitch as though they knew he ought to say something, but his mind hadn't given him any words. He knew she wouldn't hear any protest from him, and he knew he'd done the same thing to Hermione and Ron before. But his throat was tight, regardless, and his mind was restless. He let his eyes drift away from her face to the horizon behind her. From the periphery of his vision he could see her eyes flick down to her lap. "Don't do that, love," she murmured.

"Renee," Harry said. He'd surprised himself when he finally spoke. The captain's eyes widened a moment, and her face softened as it had during his first lesson with the sword. Harry clenched his hands around the lines.

"Wouldn't have thought you'd remember that," she said quietly. She gave a faint smile. "Haven't heard that name in a while," she nearly whispered; Harry had to strain his ears to hear her over the breeze and sails. They sat in silence again as the sun continued up the sky and the heat of the morning started to rise in the air. When they came down it was full daylight, and neither Hermione nor Ron were on deck.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Parlor Trick: Caution**_

Hermione cornered Harry as he stood looking off the starboard side just after noon. She'd emerged from the captain's cabin with a scroll tucked under her arm, but on seeing him she'd abandoned her walk toward the helm. He'd known she was irritated with him from the way she walked in his direction, and there was no doubt about it now that she was close.

She'd pinned him between the sea and her small figure, which she seemed to be trying to enlarge by holding her hands on her hips. Harry thought of a lizard with its neck frill inflated; he was so distracted by his witty image and then by the need to keep from laughing that he lost the first part of what she was saying.

"…can't simply walk away without facing it, Harry." A curl formed into a thick strand by the sea swim the day before twisted and shook at him as she spoke. Even her hair's angry, Harry mused. "Do you think Ron and I don't know what's going on? I trust you, Harry, but honestly—what if she's tricking you?"

"Hermione." Harry's voice sounded unduly stern even to his own ears. She stopped short, her face red. "I don't have anything she wants anymore."

"Really, Harry." Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'd say she wants something." Harry shifted, suddenly aware of the seams of his clothes grazing his sun burnt skin. Of course Ron and Hermione had seen him with the captain, and of course they knew he slept alone with her in her cabin last night. But though he thought he ought to have felt bad about it, he didn't. He just didn't.

"I just," he began. Hermione stilled to listen. "She didn't do anything to me. She wants to die, Hermione! I only kissed her, you know. That's it." He stared at his feet. "I wish she'd stay with me, but she won't. People don't, Hermione. Except you and Ron. That's it. That's my life." He turned away from her and stared out to sea again, expecting to hear her footfalls move away down the deck. But they didn't. He heard her breathing catch behind him, then felt her small arms reach up to his shoulders and try to circle him in a hug. She was so small, he thought. He always forgot how small she was.

He felt his shoulders relax as she continued to cling to him. She let go, finally, and walked away. Maybe she was satisfied he'd thought it through, or maybe she'd given up on him. Harry wanted to ask, sort of, but also didn't want to know.

Some time later, Harry didn't know how long, Anamaria asked Harry to go to the captain's cabin. He found Hermione and Ron there examining a parchment with the captain. The captain opened a space between herself and Ron for him to join them.

"Harry, Ron and the Lady have a plan," the captain said. Ron lifted his head and turned to face Harry. His normally relaxed face had hardened some, and Harry saw that his hand brushed Hermione's beneath the edge of the table.

"You don't have to do it, mate," Ron said. "Hermione read the parchment again; she thinks it's a trick."

"It is, Harry," Hermione added. "But the mutineers can't think anything's going wrong. We have to go with the pendant."

"It's like this, love," the captain said, curving her fingers in the air. "They know we've got the pendant, and they think you've got it. But they don't think you have to put the body together. To the best they know, they've got to get the piece or get you to do Potter's paying for him. We go and protect you until you can claim that our part of the curse is for you to force old Potter to pay for his crimes, savvy?" Harry stood silently replaying what she'd said. The last sentence was taxing, but he got there.

"Right. We all fight in, I give them the pendant, I pretend I'm using the sword to make Potter kill himself. Then we all leave." Harry parroted.

"Not quite, Harry," Hermione corrected. "We leave after they put Potter back together. You never actually use the sword."

"Yes you do, mate," the captain interrupted. "They'll kill you soon as look at you." Harry could see Hermione's hand seek out Ron's under the table. The captain seemed to see it too; she looked Hermione in the eye. "I won't let him die," the captain said.

"We won't either." Ron's voice had risen to the telltale Weasley stubbornness pitch. Hermione squeezed his hand. The captain waved her hand between them again.

"Hold a moment, Ron," she said. "There's no reason to risk your neck in that cave."

"I'm going," he said, planting his feet and glaring at her.

"You're not," she said. He started to speak again and she drew up to her full height. "That's the end of it," she snapped. Ron's face reddened. Hermione lifted her hand up to his arm. Despite himself Harry was relieved. They couldn't walk into all of his fights, and he couldn't let them.

Ron appeared to regain his equilibrium as they reviewed the diagram of the cave that the captain and Hermione had produced. Ron outlined a strategy of attack, which the captain changed very little. They'd steal the mutineer's boats on the way in to prevent them accessing the _Siren_. Then they'd block the exit to the cave and spill enough blood to encourage the captain of the _Leviathan_ to negotiate. They'd tell their lie about the curse. Once they'd turned over the pendant they'd leave.

Harry quietly hated the end of the plan. He was delivering Potter, who the captain said was a good man, into the hands of a bunch of cursed pirates, and he was planning to run away with the hope that they'd no longer be interested in killing him. The captain clearly had misgivings about that last piece of reasoning as well. Harry hoped they'd realize he no longer had anything they wanted, and that he'd manage to be too much trouble to kill. But he felt uncertain.

He'd let his thoughts wander again in his worry. The report of the captain's hand slamming onto the table top brought him back at once. "And I say you're not, boy," she sneered at Ron. "He'll have my best blades surrounding him. I've told you I won't see him die, mate, and I don't take to doubting."

"You can't keep us here," Ron growled. Hermione's eyes had narrowed behind him, and Harry started to fear she wouldn't try to talk Ron out of coming after them. He'd been counting on her for that.

"Aye?" The captain let out a loud laugh. "Reckon I'll surprise you," she growled. She swept away from the table and strode toward the door. She paused and turned to speak. "We come to moorings in the hour; see that you're ready."


	8. Chapter 8

_**Parlor Trick: The Cave**_

"Mr. Gibbs! Show our guests to their quarters." The captain's voice carried across the deck. Gibbs and two large sailors strode toward Ron and Hermione where they'd been looking out into the sea. Ron struggled, but Hermione merely followed. They were led through the dark door to below, and Harry simply watched them go.

He'd had his sword at his hip since leaving the captain's cabin; he found himself resting his hand on the hilt as he stood, much as he'd become accustomed to putting his fingers on the end of his wand. It wasn't that he wanted to check that it was there, it was more that the fact of it being there made him feel more solid himself—as though he might disappear, not the object. He smirked at himself. He might disappear. He might die right there in that cave.

"You see it, don't you love," the captain called. She relinquished the helm to Anamaria and joined him. They both trained their gaze on the sharp angles of L'Isle des Anges. It looked like three blackened shark's teeth bound together and thrust up from the sea. From where Harry was standing he couldn't see a way in at all—no cave, nothing. The captain threw her arm around his shoulders and brought her hand up near his face to point his gaze. "You see there, love? The darker bit at the water line?"

"No," Harry said quietly, distracted by the warmth and weight of her arm.

"Beneath the rightmost peak. Follow it down. You'll see a dark bit of rock. Watch the water there." Harry drew his eyes down the line she'd indicated. There was a darkened patch—only barely darkened—near the waterline. He trained his eyes on the water there, expecting the periodic white spray that surrounded the rest of the island as the sea worked its way around the steep rock faces. But there was nothing. He squinted. The water was calm there.

"The rock's not there," he concluded.

"Good man," the captain murmured. Harry could feel the muscles of her arm tighten as she started to release him from her hold. She drew her palm over his shoulder and down the muscles of his back as she dropped her arm. "There's a bit of sand to beach the boats inside. Then, like I said, we dive."

Harry nodded. The true entrance of the cave was underwater, beneath the initial chamber. They'd have to dive into a pool and find a portal in the rock. The captain said they'd be underwater on the other side, but not for long. Harry didn't relish emerging head first into a room of cursed pirates who wanted to kill him. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword again. He looked up, feeling the captain's eyes on him. She'd been watching his hand on his sword, and was looking at him gently, meeting his eyes.

"You'll be with me. Anamaria and Mason will have our flanks." Harry nodded. He'd heard this the night before. "But Harry—I've thought on it." She paused, casting her eyes briefly back out to the sea. "You'll go in as our prisoner."

"Why?" Harry couldn't help replaying Hermione's warning in his mind.

"Because they won't expect us to deliver what they want, Harry." He gave her a puzzled look. She waved a hand between them. "It's not a pirate's way to show the goods, love. When we do that they won't know what to do next."

"You're going to…" Harry began.

"No, Harry." She snapped. She let out a long breath before turning her eyes back up to him. "They'll never touch you." She looked back to the island. "I promised the Lady. And besides, wouldn't be good business." She gave him a forced grin; Harry watched the glint of the sun off the gold tooth facing him. Her grin fell slowly. "You're loose the entire time. I carry your sword." Harry's hand went to his hilt again. She noticed. "They'll hardly think I'm telling the truth if you're armed, love."

"Right," Harry muttered.

"Have I ever given you reason not to trust me?" The captain turned toward him with challenge on her face. Harry backed up a step.

"No," he said. And she hadn't. Beyond that, what good did it do her for him to die? None.

"Now come with me," she ordered. Harry followed, a little puzzled. He thought of asking her, as they crossed the deck, what else she had planned for him. But he supposed he'd learn that soon enough. They walked into the gloom of her cabin, and Harry's mind cast back over the small amount of time since their first lesson with the cutlass. He found a smirk on his face. The captain looked up from rummaging in a case.

"Something amusing, love?" She drawled. She sunk her hands into the case again and came up with a handful of cloth strips much like the ones around her wrists. Harry shook his head, keeping his eyes on the cloth in her hands. She walked across the cabin to a small ledge near the windows. She reached beneath it and withdrew a thin dagger about the length of Harry's forearm. She walked over to him and took his wrist, pulling his arm toward her.

"What are you doing?" Harry mumbled at the crown of her head. She'd bent over his arm to push his sleeve up past his elbow. It wouldn't quite stretch enough at the cuff; she let out a frustrated grunt.

"That'll have to go, darling," she said. Harry's eyebrows shot up his forehead. She looked up at him, her hand still locked around his wrist. He stood frozen. She dropped her hand from his wrist. "Well? Off with it, then."

"What—why?" He cleared his throat, annoyed that his voice had been so unsteady.

"You didn't think I'd let you go in unarmed, Harry," she said. He balked. "Trust me?" She flicked her eyes up at him and backed away a step. Harry was suddenly extremely self-conscious. She seemed to come to a decision.

She stepped back in front of him and slid her hands up his sides from the waist of his pants, drawing the shirt up toward his chest. His skin felt tight in her wake. Move, idiot, Harry scolded himself. She stepped back away when he put his arms up to pull the shirt off. By the time he had the shirt off his head and his glasses back in place she'd returned to thrust one of her own shirts in front of him. He took it, surreptitiously running the rough cloth between his fingertips.

"The Lady mended it, eh?" The captain said. Harry thrust his arms through the sleeves. He felt a bit silly with the volume of fabric hanging from his arms, but was relieved they were long enough. "Give us your arm, love," the captain prodded, the flat sheath of the knife back in her hands.

Harry pushed up his sleeve and let her take his wrist again. She tied two strips of fabric around the length of the sheath, holding it in place along the line of his forearm so the grip barely tucked inside the bend of his wrist. She pulled the blade free and held it in her teeth as she wrapped his other hand and wrist much like her own. She slid it back in place and finished the wrap close to the grip of the knife. Harry flexed his fingers. He let his arm drop to his side. The sleeve dropped down to his wrist, concealing the weapon. He was surprised the dagger didn't slip from the sheath, but it didn't.

"Now the other," she commanded. She pushed the sleeve only half-way up his forearm and wrapped his other hand and wrist much the same way. Harry looked at her curiously. "Can't let them know which arm it is, love," she said.

Her shirt hung low on his shoulders and the front gaped open. She pulled a face. "Won't do," she muttered. Harry thought it wouldn't, either. He felt ridiculous standing there, and he could only imagine what Ron would have to say about it. Of course, she'd locked Ron and Hermione up somewhere in the _Siren_. He snapped his attention back to her when she started sliding open the buckle on the belt holding his scabbard. His stomach tensed.

"Easy, darling," she purred, smirking up at him before returning her attention to the belt. She left the buckle half undone and ran the flat of her hand up his stomach to his chest. The rough edges of the wrapping on her hand drew his mind away from anything else. She reached his neck and curled her hand around the side, pushing her fingertips into the hair at the nape. She tilted her head at him and looked him in the eye. "Shame to lose something so fine," she said quietly.

He put his hand over hers, initially surprised by the unfamiliar feeling of the end of the scabbard against the inside of his elbow. He was making it worse for himself, just as Hermione had said. He held back a moment, flicking his eyes over the features of her face. Dead in that cave or not, he knew she'd never come to England in the middle of a war that had nothing to do with her.

Then she reached up and pressed a light kiss against the pulse opposite her hand. Harry felt a sound rumble out of his throat. He caught her hair roughly in his fingers and pulled her head back to expose the arch of her throat. Her skin was warm against his mouth; he pulled it in to run his tongue over it. She arched against him, whispering his name. Eventually he let go and met her lips, letting his hands brush over her body. She pulled away from him and put a hand to her head, her breathing rough and loud in the room.

"Harry," she sighed. "Oh gods, Harry, there's no time," she looked at him sadly. He reached for her again, but she wouldn't step forward to him. He dropped his arm to his side.

She'd pushed his shirt from his shoulder; the collar sagged around his arm near his elbow. She stepped forward, her face a mask. She dragged the shirt back up, avoiding contact between her fingers and his skin. She finished undoing the buckle of his belt and strapped it around him atop the shirt, which she'd wrapped around in front of her as she did her own.

They didn't speak again until the crew had arrived inside the first chamber of the cave, and even then it was only for the captain to bind his hands such that he could free himself. She took his sword from his scabbard and pushed it through a layer of the scarf at her waist. Harry imagined he felt a chill over his skin as the sword left his side, and he reached to tap the grip of the hidden dagger with his fingertips. With a wave of her hand the captain ordered her crew into the water and followed herself, flanked with Anamaria and Mason. Harry followed. Yes, he trusted her.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Parlor Trick: A Devil's Dowry**_

The open mouth of the second chamber shone a sickly yellow through the clear water of the still pool. Harry could see it after only a few moments' swimming behind the sailors. The disturbance of the silt at the bottom of the pool steadily obscured his sight until he was swimming straight ahead on hope alone. The feeling was terrifying; it reminded him unpleasantly of the tournament. And it wasn't much easier with his hands bound, certainly. He felt a strong hand grip his belt toward the last and haul him upward. When he broke the surface he could see Mason beside him. The large man nodded and gestured for quiet.

A few sailors were arrayed in the shadows of the few contours of rock that jutted up from the floor of the cave, but the rest kept their heads low to the water, breathing quietly. Harry fairly ached with the desire to walk out of the pool and see who stood under the torches lighting the room. But Mason held tight to his arm.

He could see the back of the captain's head in front of him; a coin from her plaits glinted beneath a layer of wet strands. She drew her cutlass and nodded to the sailors to do the same. With another light movement of her fingers, the sailors behind the rocks put their blades over the formations and slashed quickly; their blades dripped blood when Harry saw them come back over into the dark. He hadn't heard a sound over the voices on the other side of the cavern. The sailors to the front moved quickly past the formations and passed out of Harry's vision. Another rank of sailors took their places.

They pressed forward in the same pattern until half the crew was gone—into the shadows of the larger cavern, Harry imagined. This hadn't been part of Ron's plan, he thought, but Ron was a chess player. The captain and her men were fighters. He trusted her, he reminded himself, touching the edge of the binding he'd pull to free his hands.

Harry's entire body stiffened when the roar went up in the cavern. One moment there had been nothing, and then a voice screamed "the _Siren_!" Incoherent screaming and echoing roars filled the dark where Harry remained hidden. His face tightened and he strained his eyes.

"Still coddling the whelps, LeBleu?" a voice sneered above the fight. The captain sliced her hand through the air, and half the remaining sailors advanced with her. Mason's hand moved to Harry's arm, guiding him from the water. He felt Anamaria's quiet presence beside him, then saw the glint of her two blades.

"All these years, and still you keep the soft heart of a woman?" The mocking voice in the cavern grew louder as LeBleu approached. Harry saw Anamaria's teeth glint as she sneered. They walked forward and a few of the remaining sailors fell in behind them.

"A word before I kill your men again, Scott," the captain snarled, "lest we replay this scene till judgment day and trumpets sound."

"You may take your words to hell!" A roar flew up when the man spoke. The captain had continued forward, with Harry tailing, as they insulted one another. On seeing him standing near the captain, Captain Scott froze. Harry knew him at once: a tall man in slashed and filthy clothes that clung to his frame with the help of a wide belt holding a curved blade.

From the corners of his vision he could see bodies bleeding onto the damp stone of the cavern floor. To his disgust, their eyes were darting back and forth between the two captains, even as their slit necks spilled gore. Several of them began to sit up as the confrontation mounted.

"The boy," Captain Scott muttered only just loudly enough to be heard. He held up a hand. "Hold, men. We will hear her." The sailors paused with their blades still at the ready, still eyeing each other.

"My men and I," Captain LeBleu said, "have a little thing you want." She walked back to Harry and scratched her fingernail slowly down his jaw and out from beneath his chin, leering at him. I trust her, he reminded himself.

"Potter's boy," Scott growled. He started to walk toward Harry, but LeBleu stopped him with the point of her cutlass at his chin.

"Hands off the goods, mate," she snarled. "You see, Scott," she said softly, curling her lip, "we're in a bit of a bind." She withdrew her sword. "You want Potter's power; I want the boy."

Captain Scott hissed at her. "I see no bind, LeBleu," he growled. "You have what we want; we take it. Can't argue when you're dead."

"You forget this," LeBleu purred. She held up her free hand, dangling the pendant from its chain. Scott's eyes narrowed. He looked from Harry to the pendant. "You remember Potter, Scott. Never was a man to go easy." She'd made her voice light and conversational again. Harry wrinkled his brow. "Say you put old Potter together again, and you can't get the power out of him?" She swiveled her gaze from the gently swinging pendant to stare hard at Scott. "What then, Captain?"

"Say your piece," he sneered.

"You do remember him, men," she swept her gaze over the crew of the _Leviathan_. "Old Potter would never see the boy die before himself—would he?" The crew looked uncertain. "He'd not let you kill the whelp just to die himself, lads, it was never his way."

"It weren't, Captain," a rail-thin sailor with a smashed leg said. Scott sneered.

"So you give us the pendant, threaten the boy, and Potter gives the payment," Scott summarized.

"I get the boy, and you get to die." LeBleu confirmed. "What say you?" Scott shifted his weight and looked hard at her.

"Why should you be giving us the pendant after all these years, LeBleu?" Scott looked hard at Harry. "Why would you be giving it up now?"

"Because I want you dead, Scott," LeBleu laughed. "And with the boy here, you will be." Scott sneered at her and turned away for a moment. He turned back.

"And if the pendant fails?" Scott said.

"You kill the whelp," LeBleu waved her hand dismissively. Scott sheathed his cutlass, and LeBleu did the same.

"Aye," he growled. "We have an accord." He reached his grimy hand toward LeBleu, who took it in a firm grip. "Men!" Scott bellowed. The sailors of the _Leviathan_—those in a condition to do so—collected around their captain. The crew of the Siren surrounded Harry and Captain LeBleu. Harry was shifted toward the middle of the crowd; he could see LeBleu toward the front, her hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Opposite them, several sailors struggled to bring a case forward. It was oblong, like a coffin. Harry seemed to hear that thought as it came through his head, and he suddenly felt ill. It was a coffin, but the man wasn't dead. He wasn't even enough of a man to be dead. He trained his eyes on the back of the captain's head again, forcing his mind away from it. The sailors set the case down, and Scott roughly kicked the lid from it. Harry was relieved he couldn't see inside.

Captain LeBleu threw the pendant at them. Scott caught it in the air. The sailors behind him leaned forward, pressing one another, as Scott dropped the pendant into the box. He flattened his hand over it and stared hard at the interior. The cavern fell silent—even the sound of the water faintly moving in the pool stopped. Harry felt as though the box was pulling at him; his skin felt dragged away from his bones. A blue shaft of light started up from the box. First there was one, then several. The silence continued. Harry ground his teeth together as the pulling feeling became painful.

He was shocked when the scream came. The wail split against his head, shaking his bones all the way down to his neck. The vacuum in the cavern burst all at once, and sound rushed through. It was a horror in his pressurized ears; he grunted as the sound of the water raked through his mind.

"Potter!" Scott bellowed. Harry winced, and he felt Mason's hand tighten on his shoulder. A monstrous body sat up from the box. Great gashes had been removed from the sides; whole slabs of ruined flesh hung from the bones. The skeletal man's wounds steadily healed as he continued to get to his feet.

"You," the body hissed. Its voice seemed mostly wind, but the high pitch of it made it carry. Harry shivered again, and again he felt Mason's hand tighten. New muscles and skin wrapped the man as Harry watched. He slowly saw a near double of himself emerge from the dead man. The man spoke again, his voice stronger: "What more will you do, Scott? What more can you do but what you've done?"

"You'll give of your soul, Potter," Scott commanded.

"I'll do nothing, hellspawn," Potter spat. The black hair had returned to his head, thick and wild.

"You will, love," LeBleu said. Potter whirled to face her. Scott grabbed the man and put his dagger to Potter's throat.

"What will you do, Scott?" Potter laughed bitterly. Harry was reminded of Sirius. He tightened his fists. "Kill me again? You're damned and you've no way out."

"Wrong," LeBleu said. She walked toward Potter. Harry's eyes were trained on the two of them, on the beads in her hair and the likeness of himself in front of her. "You see, mate, matters have changed." She put up her hand and the sailors in front of Harry parted. Potter growled at LeBleu.

"What have you done?" He snarled.

"Only what you would have, mate," she said. "After three hundred years, darling, I'm ready to force your hand."

"LeBleu," Potter said. His face had fallen; Harry couldn't read it. His voice sounded disbelieving, though, and Harry wondered just how Potter had known the captain.

"Enough, Potter," she said. "You give, or the boy does."

"LeBleu," Potter said again. His eyes had widened. Harry peered at the two of them, confused. "My God, LeBleu!" At that, LeBleu lifted a hand as though she was going to gesture, but she said nothing. She turned her hand over in the light.

"That's interesting," she whispered. Harry squinted forward. Her hand was shrinking—no, her flesh was shrinking into the bone. Bits of her hair began to fall from her head. She turned to face Harry, her skin sunken and dried against her skull. "We were wrong, love. Following winds…"

Her voice was gone, but her jaw still moved. A crippling pain ripped through Harry's chest as she began to crumble in front of him; he turned his face away when her jaw fell to the floor and shattered, flinging her teeth across the stone. Harry felt Mason's hand slacken, and then leave his shoulder. He stared as the pirates in front of him began to fall, piece by piece, into the water. By the time he looked forward again the captain was gone. In her place was a pile of weapons, rings, coins, and two gold teeth.

Harry was left staring at Potter, his mouth slack with horror. Potter's face nearly mirrored his own. Scott laughed. "Kill the boy," Scott growled.

Harry pulled on the rope of his bonds and pulled out his dagger as two pirates came toward him. He threw the dagger at one of them, not caring where it hit. He heard the sound of it hitting flesh, but saved his eyes for his search for a fallen sword. Finally he grabbed up Mason's and took to slashing at the pirates as they came, his strength fueled by grief and anger.

He hardly dared to look around him beyond the approaching blades; he focused all his force on using Mason's sword as he'd used his own. Strengthen it, he told himself. Tell it what you want. Attack. What do you want? As the edge finally started to turn gold, he hissed to it: kill them.

He found himself nearly cornered near the wall of the cavern, and his slashes became less precise. He forced himself to remember the layout. Think of the captain's blocks, he told himself. What can you do? He scrambled up one of the outcroppings of rock and hacked at the arms of the pirates attacking him. To his shock, one of his strikes took an arm clean off. The pirate grabbed at the stump, backing away. His eyes went terribly wide.

The walls of the cavern began to glint with another source of light. Harry risked a look to the center of the chamber. Potter was suspended from the ground, his chest lifted, and shafts of green light seemed to be exploding through his flesh. The pirates still slashing at Harry stopped when the light intensified. They stilled entirely, some dropping their weapons.

Potter turned in the air, his body seeming to shrink in on itself. Then, with little warning, he dropped to the floor of the cavern. Harry stared as Potter pressed up on one arm, clearly weak, and said, "They done what's right by them, boy. Can't argue with that."

The pirates collapsed, similarly weakened, where they'd stood. Harry walked to Potter, still holding Mason's sword at guard. Potter's breath was whistling in his throat, and his skin was shrinking away.

"Boy," he called. Harry knelt next to him, feeling the stench of the man's body curling in his throat. "She should never have stolen this." Potter held the pendant against his chest. "Return it to the Lady," he said. The skin of his chest fell away, then, and in moments the pendant fell through his ribcage to the stone below. Harry dropped Mason's sword and retched.

Beside himself and disoriented, Harry scratched in the dust of his ancestors' body for the pendant. He looped it over his neck. He turned and stepped the short distance to the pile of metal where the captain had been. He pressed his hands into the fine dust, almost like sand, that had once been her. It was cold from the stone of the cavern. He felt a tear clot in his eyelashes and roll down his cheek to his mouth. He drew up a hand to wipe it off, and the grit transferred from his hands formed a track across his face where his tear had been.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Parlor Trick: Return to the Map**_

By the time he surfaced in the outer chamber he'd reacquired his sword. He hadn't remembered doing it, but was glad he'd thought of it. There were sounds in the cave when he emerged, and he was relieved to draw the blade up to guard before stilling in the pool to listen.

"Harry?" Ron's voice hissed.

"Harry," Hermione called more loudly. "We couldn't find the way in." He could just make them out in the dark. They were concealed behind a ship's boat, but they'd stuck their heads up to see him. For a long moment he just looked at them, and they looked at him.

"They're dead, aren't they," Ron said at last. Harry nodded, cutting his eyes away.

"Oh Harry," Hermione said. She stood behind the boat and walked into the water to him. They stood on the slick bottom of the pool, facing each other. Her face was drawn with sadness. She walked a step closer and put her arms around him. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and clung to her with force that surprised him.

"He said—Potter said—to give this to you," Harry managed at last, letting go of Hermione. He drew the pendant over his neck and handed it to her. Her face crumpled into even deeper sadness as she took it.

"Thank you, Harry," she said, looping it over her neck. It shortened again to fit beneath her collarbone. Ron stood with his hands pushed into his pockets; when he met Harry's eyes he looked like he was struggling with something.

"I'm sorry, mate," he said at last. Harry nodded to him and turned away from both of them to walk out of the pool. He joined them at the boat. Harry sat still and quiet as Ron rowed them out of the cave. "Anamaria showed Hermione how to get the boat down," Ron said, his voice quiet.

"But she didn't tell us how to get inside," Hermione added. Hermione pressed her palm against Harry's back, between his shoulder blades. Harry let his head drop to his chest, then pulled it back up with a sharp inhalation.

"There was nothing you could do," Harry said at last. The trio fell silent then as Ron continued to row. When they emerged from the steep sides of L'Isle des Anges, the moon was high in the sky. Harry hadn't felt he'd been in the cave that many hours, but he truly couldn't remember. He turned his head toward the last mooring of the _Siren_. Then he scanned the sea, sure he'd simply been mistaken about where it was.

"It's not—where is it?" Hermione's quiet voice behind him confirmed what he'd initially thought. "It was here. It was, wasn't it, Ron?"

"It isn't now," he said.

"Maybe if we go closer," Hermione said. They tried. Ron rowed them to the spot they thought they remembered. They searched the dark sea with their eyes some time until Ron looked down.

"Bloody hell," he whispered. There below them not deep enough to be out of sight was the crow's nest of the _Siren_. Harry could just see the ledge beneath it where the captain had insisted he learn their coordinates. She'd been right; he would have to find a way home. He wrenched his gaze up to the moon, and refused to look into the water again. Ron rowed them away, and Harry guided them back to the mouth of the cave.

They sat in the boat for a moment after they beached it. Harry's quiet seemed to have spread to Hermione and Ron as well. At last, Ron raised the question they'd all been thinking about.

"What do we do now?" Harry turned to face him. Ron had his eyes cast up to the rock of the island itself, not to Hermione or to Harry. Harry thought it was fitting, sort of, to expect the cave to get them out of the mess it had originally got all of them into. The three of them, the _Siren_, the captain—all of them.

"The captain said we could make it to Jamaica," Harry said. Hermione turned toward him.

"She told you?" Her head was slightly tilted and her eyes a bit narrowed. Harry nodded. "When?"

"This morning," he began. His throat closed, and he coughed. "She said to start at light so a ship could see us." He turned away from them. Hermione placed her hand to his back again, briefly, before joining Ron to look for a place to sleep. Harry lay down in the boat, not convinced he could sleep without the motion of the water beneath him.

The next morning was bright, and the sea was calm. Ron rowed the boat out of the cave again and rounded the island by Harry's instructions. He set off beyond the barrier cloaking the spires of rock from sight, rowing with energy Harry knew he couldn't have felt. They'd been without food or water, and it was a long way to Jamaica. He trained his eyes on the horizon, hoping for a ship.

Hermione's startled cry alerted Harry to Fawkes' presence before the bird's talons did. The phoenix looked at Harry with a brilliant eye, and then flew some distance before them. He circled back and joined them again.

"We follow him," Harry said.

"You're sure?" Ron asked, already rowing in the direction Fawkes had indicated. Harry nodded, watching carefully for Fawkes' next directions. They rowed only another hour, trading off, before they came to a fishing boat out of Jamaica. Hermione took charge of getting them to Kingston, where Order members met them for the travel to London.

To Harry's great relief, Hermione and Ron also handled the report to the Order. Tonks and Hermione both made attempts to get him to tell them what happened in the cave, but he found he couldn't. He was grateful when Hermione started wearing the pendant tucked beneath her robes where he no longer had to see it.

* * *

It was awfully tempting to write the Ron and Hermione scene in the cave. I'd just like you to know I'm showing restraint. 


	11. Epilogue

**_Parlor Trick : Eplilogue_**

"Reckon I'll ask Harry if he's up for a game," Ron said, not bothering to look in the direction of his wife, whose head was hidden behind the Daily Prophet. If he'd looked he'd have seen the uppermost curls on the pile she'd made at her crown, and the angle of the quill rammed through the mass to cement it all. He wouldn't have seen the Lady's pendant resting against her neck. But he didn't need to look to know he'd see those things, so Ron didn't look; he continued minding the bacon. She tilted her head up at his comment, setting the Prophet aside.

"He's off again, Ron. Don't you remember?" At that Ron did turn away from the bacon. He gave her a blank look for a moment, which tumbled into an expression of mixed regret and sadness.

"I wish he'd stop going," Ron mumbled.

"I do too, Ron, but I think every time he goes he thinks he'll get a piece of her back, or something…" Hermione trailed off, putting her fingers to the pendant at her neck.

"We were only kids, Hermione," Ron protested.

"I think really did love her," she said. Ron's eyebrows lifted. "I do; I believe it."

"Love, he was seventeen." Ron turned back to the bacon and rescued it from the overheating pan.

"We were seventeen too, Ronald," Hermione's serious voice got Ron's attention again. "And really, was Harry ever just a kid?" Their faces set into identical, familiar, looks of grief.

"No, he never was." Ron said. Their conversation hung over their breakfast, darkening the room. Hermione's quick mind turned the problem over one more time, as it had every year Harry had taken off for the Caribbean and come back disconsolate. It had been five years. That seemed far too long, to Hermione, for a person to be sad.

It also seemed utterly incomprehensible that this would be the thing—after the defeat of Voldemort, the loss of friends, the pain of being orphaned, everything—that crushed him. And it was crushing him. She was angry at it, and by extension angry with him. How could all the damage to all the people who loved him, including herself, count for less than a woman he'd known for days. Merely days!

Ron was gone most of the afternoon to play the weekly quidditch game at the burrow. Hermione, in a foul humor after her morning worrying about Harry, had chosen to stay and organize her books. Ron now knew better than to roll his eyes or say anything about his wife's fits of organization, but he couldn't keep the disbelief off his face. And after the years of their marriage Hermione could finally find his disbelief a little endearing, and not too terribly irritating.

So she sat that afternoon on the floor of her home office with her potions books arrayed around her in piles by date of publication, and thinking hard about Harry. She'd seen him hide the sword he'd brought out of the cave; she knew it was still in a case behind a box of quidditch equipment in his attic. She knew, too, that he'd never get rid of it. Hermione took the pendant off and dangled it from her fingers in front of the light from the window. The sun caught the sea glass, making it glow a soft green.

That was it, perhaps. She and Ron were sad, but they faced it. Sure, they had each other and had not been so attached to the crew of the _Siren_, but that wasn't the point. She wore the pendant around her neck, and Harry hid the sword where he'd never see it. Hermione let out a frustrated huff. Well, she'd make him see it. If he wouldn't help himself, she'd help him.

She put the pendant back around her neck, happier with its familiar weight in place. She waved her wand at the potions books, shooting them back to the shelf in the same order as before. He was supposed to return that evening. She could wait.

To say that Harry was stunned to find Hermione in his chair that evening when he returned home would have been an understatement. It was hideous outside—foggy and gray—and not fit for going anywhere. If Harry had wanted to predict where Hermione would be, he'd have laid money that she'd be at home reading. But there she was, in the chair.

"Harry," she began, getting to her feet. Harry knew that tone of voice; he dug into his memory, searching for anything he'd done wrong. "I'm tired of watching you do this."

"What?" Harry set his bag and coat down near the door and crossed the room to her. She stood with her hands on her hips.

"You know what, Harry," she snapped. "Every year you go chasing after her. She's gone. None of us like it. But you've got to move on."

"Don't talk about what you can't understand, Hermione," Harry growled. They stared hard at one another.

"I was there, Harry," she began.

"You weren't." He flung a hand up between them and turned away. "You know nothing about it."

"Because you won't tell me!" She followed him to the window, where he ran his shirt sleeve over the grime on the pane. The fog kept him from seeing much, but he tried. Then he was distracted by the glint of something flying toward him.

He automatically reached out and caught the missile she'd thrown. As soon as he touched it his face fell. It was the pendant. He tried handing it back to her. "No, Harry," she said. He glared at her.

"What do you want from me?" He snarled.

"I want you to stop hiding from it!" Her voice was shaking with annoyance, and her eyes had watered. "I know you keep that sword in your attic, Harry." He turned away from her and tried again to look out the window. Hermione's small hand grabbed his and pulled the pendant up in front of his face. "I'm not letting you avoid it any more," she let out a sob, and her hand shook. The sea glass of the pendant was a milky grey in the dim light. He tilted it toward the lamp, making it shine green. Hermione backed away from him. Then she screamed.

The auror in him had his body turned and his wand out before he could even think. He'd dropped the pendant as he wheeled around, and now stood scanning the room. Hermione had her hands clutched to her mouth and was staring, horrified, at something behind his couch. In two steps he was beside her, and she turned to crush her face against his arm.

He was no help to her. As soon as he realized what had made her scream, he dropped to his knees, letting his wand clatter to the floor. There, on the carpet, was a skeleton with the hair, clothes, and sword of Captain LeBleu. He clenched his fists to his sides. He could hear Hermione sob behind him. Then a series of images flashed past his mind. He remembered sand—sand in a pile with the captain's rings and sword. He stretched a hand toward the skeleton. There hadn't been one. The bones had disintegrated—he had watched them. He stared at it, closed his eyes a moment, and stared again. It was; it was growing. So help him, the fringes of flesh adhering to the skeleton were forming into skin and muscle again.

He dropped his outstretched hand to his side, horrified and transfixed by the restoration of the captain's body. He barely allowed himself the luxury of hoping she would be intact inside it. Surely this was just an echo of the curse, sending her to him again. But he wasn't in danger—the pirates were dead.

"Harry," Hermione whispered. She knelt beside him, holding the pendant. "The pendant, Harry," she continued in a whisper, looking at him with wide eyes. "I attacked you with it."

Harry recalled an image of the pendant falling through Potter's ribs before he crumbled to dust. He took the pendant from Hermione's fingers and held it to the light again. There inside the mounting was the tiniest chip; within that a wisp of hair, and a few grains of dust, were trapped. He clenched his fingers around the pendant, making the mounting dig into his palm.

As they'd spoken the captain's skin had knitted around her. It was the smooth tan Harry remembered; her hair had the same sun bleached irregularity, and her eyes were rimmed with kohl. He stretched a hand to her face again and brought his fingertips to the line of her jaw. She inhaled sharply, and her eyes flew open. Hermione gasped and backed away, clutching at Harry's arm.

The captain let out a growl and swept her leg around to sling herself upright. In an instant she was behind Harry with her hand in his hair and her dagger to his throat. Hermione stared, horror struck.

"You aren't him, boy," the captain snarled. "That scar's not yours."

"Renee?" Harry choked on the word. He could feel the hand in his hair slacken, then it tightened again.

"I don't believe you." The captain said. Her voice wavered at the end. "I died; you can't be him."

"You didn't," Hermione blurted. The captain's hand slackened again in Harry's hair. He cast his eyes down to the grip of her dagger. "You're not dead anymore," Hermione continued.

"Hold a moment, there, missy," the captain began. The rest of her sentence was blocked by Harry's swift wrench to her arm and the force of his shoulder against her chest. The captain flew to the floor with Harry's weight on top of her. He pinned her wrist to the carpet with one hand and gripped the fingers of the other.

"Prove it yourself," he spat.

"I'm the one that's bloody immortal, whelp," she snarled, writhing against his hold. Then she quieted some, and looked keenly at him. The two looked at one another for a moment in silence. "You're stronger than you used to be," she mumbled. "And you're older," she added, visibly confused. "Mother's Love," she breathed, entirely ceasing her struggle to squint at his face "That is you, Harry, isn't it?"

"But it can't be you," he growled, ending his hesitation and slamming her other wrist to the floor.

"What do you mean it's not me?" She snapped, "You're the one that looks like every other bloody Potter."

"You're dead; you died in that cave." His voice was raw with old anger. "I don't care if you don't look that way."

"Harry, she's not dead." Hermione's warning tone was lost on Harry, whose confusion had become anger. "Harry, stop," Hermione pleaded. Her voice seemed to break whatever had frozen him atop the captain. He released her wrists and rolled off of her.

"Just go, whoever you are," Harry said. The captain sat up slowly and came to stand in front of him. For a moment they looked at each other. Then the captain reached out her hand. She stretched her fingers out to the curve of his jaw, just as he remembered her doing. Her face softened, and he knew. He leaned his face toward her hand.

"Love, if I'm cursed," she paused, sighed sharply, and continued. "Love—you're right, I should go," she barely whispered. He clutched her hand in both of his and pulled her toward him. "Harry, I can't," she stopped, the words dying in her throat. Harry saw tears gathering along her eyelashes.

"If you're not cursed?" he said. She turned her face away. He backed away from her and bent to retrieve her dagger from the floor. She stepped back with her hand near the hilt of her cutlass.

"Harry," she warned.

"Do you trust me?" he said quietly, reaching for her hand.

"Aye," she said at last, putting her hand in his. He grasped her hand tightly and drew the blade of the dagger down her palm in one smooth motion. She gasped and tried to wrench her hand away, but Harry anticipated her move, flinging the dagger away from them and locking his arm around her back. He held the bleeding hand in his own, keeping it steady between them.

"If it heals," he said, letting his voice trail away as the captain stopped struggling against his hold. "If it heals we'll know." He let go of her but kept her hand between them. It bled freely, running through their fingers and dripping onto the carpet.

"Harry, it—it should have closed," the captain whispered. "It isn't." Harry brought the wound close to his face. It continued to bleed. He moved her hand, and she hissed, instinctively curling her fingers. They both continued to stare at her bleeding hand as Hermione let herself out and set a layer of protective charms behind her.

"You know, love," the captain said, flashing a tentative grin at him, "When I taught you to draw blood I never thought it'd end like this." She gave him a slightly wider grin. He smiled back as he felt her uninjured hand thread up into his hair. "Ruddy hurts, you know."

"You're making a mess of my carpet," he teased her. She brought up a finger and drew a curved line of blood down his cheek. He smirked at her. "Naughty," he teased.

"Pirate." Both her gold teeth shone up at him. He leaned down and lightly kissed the corner of her mouth. She angled her face toward him. He drew her lower lip into his mouth and ran his tongue along the edge; she pressed her body tighter against him. She moved again and he moaned, crushing his mouth to hers and kissing her hard. She made a small cry deep in her throat and arched her back; Harry kissed his way over her jaw line to her neck, following her pulse to her collarbone. "Gods, love," she hissed, "you picked the worst time to deprive me of the use of my hand."

He broke away from her, bringing the hand between them. After a few moments of remembering what he was doing and how to do it, he sealed the slash on her palm. When he moved his focus back up to her face he was surprised to find her glancing around the room, confused. "What is it?" he asked.

"The Lady's gone," the captain murmured.

"I'd hope so," Harry countered. The captain looked at him with a grin that bloomed into a laugh.

"Scandalized her, did we?" she teased.

"She set enough charms to guard a gold mine," Harry muttered. The captain laughed again before resting her arms atop his shoulders.

"You missed me, then?" At her words Harry finished his surreptitious loosening of her sash. She looked surprised to see it dropping to the floor.

"For five bloody years," he growled. He sped along the unwrapping of the sash and pushed her open shirt from her shoulders, not caring that the cuffs hung at her cloth-wrapped wrists. He swept her up off the floor and strode down the hallway with her, kicking open the bedroom door and depositing her on the bed.

"I did make a pirate of you, didn't I?" she purred, pulling her wrists in front of her to untie her shirt at the cuffs. Harry joined her on the mattress and pulled her against him, eagerly smoothing his hands over her skin. She leaned away from him and looked in his eyes a moment. "Harry, darling, I'm not doing this with my bloody boots on," she drawled.

He let go of her, laughing. She squirmed to the side of the bed and kicked her boots off. Harry threw his shirt to the opposite corner of the room and leaned back against the headboard of his bed. She surprised him by throwing a leg over his lap and straddling his hips before leaning in to kiss him again. "Care to show me what I've missed?" she murmured, her lips close to his ear. And he did.

* * *

This happy ending is dedicated to everyone so gravely upset by my decision to kill off Dempsey. Yes, this one's for you. 


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